The glacial burst in Uttarakhand on Sunday morning took a heavy toll on the National Thermal Power Corporation’s under-construction Tapovan Vishnugad Hydropower plant project in Chamoli district as nearly 150 of its workers went missing and its main dam washed away.
According to an action taken report by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority issued at 5pm on Sunday, “Over 148 personnel of NTPC and 22 of Rishiganga hydro power projects (another power project) have gone missing.” It also said that over “12 labourers stuck at the Edit tunnel (passage to the main tunnel) have been rescued but 30 labourers in the main tunnel are still stuck”. A senior NTPC official told TOI, “The main dam and an office have been washed away in the flash floods. The approximate cost of the total NTPC project is around Rs 13,500 crore and the expected loss due to the glacial burst is estimated to be around Rs 450 crore.”
The official said, “As it was Sunday, most of the engineers were off and some of them who were supposed to come for work were expected to arrive only around noon. As the glacial burst happened around 10am, these engineers escaped death. It was a colony of labourers near the barrage that bore the brunt of the glacial burst. And that is the reason why nearly 150 labourers have gone missing.” Around 200 civil engineers have been working on the NTPC power project since the construction began.
The foundation stone of the 520 MW hydroelectric project, which is expected to generate over 2.5k GWh of electricity annually, was laid by the then Union power minister P M Saeed on February 14, 2005 and its construction started in 2006.
The project was at an advanced stage of completion and was supposed to start power production within the next one year. However, with the main dam washed away and NTPC suffering heavy losses of its men and machines, the project’s fate now hangs in balance.