Myagdi, June 1: A high-level delegation from the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation today carried out a field inspection to the 40-megawatt Rahughat Hydropower Project being developed by the Raghuganga Hydropower, an auxiliary company of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).
The team comprising India’s ambassador to Nepal, Naveen Srivastava, energy secretary Suresh Acharya and NEA managing director Hitendra Dev Shakya directed the contractor company representatives to accelerate the construction efforts, according to Raghuganga Hydropower’s Managing Operator Ganesh KC.
The Indian Government, the Energy Ministry and the NEA have showed their concerns to the progress of the project implementation as it is likely to miss the construction deadline by this month (June, 2025).
The project so far reports 79.50 percent physical progress and Rahughat project civil contractor Jaya Parakash Associates and electromechanical contractor Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has sought to extend the deadline by December 31, 2025.
The project’s contract was signed among the parties concerned in November 2017 with an initial deadline for around 45 months. The deadline extended third time will be ending on June 27, 2025.
During the visit, JP Associates’ manager Harish Agrawal and BHEL representative Harsh Bardhan requested an extension of the project deadline. In response, the delegation expressed concern over the continued delays despite multiple extensions.
The project, a collaboration between the NEA and the government, is being executed under a company model and follows the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) format. A soft loan of USD 67 million has been secured from the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank for its implementation. Although IVRCL had initially been awarded the contract to develop the project, it was annulled in 2015 due to the company’s deteriorating financial condition.
