LAHORE: The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has installed the third and last radial gate on the spillway of the 969MW Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric project.

Addressing a ceremony held at the site on Wednesday to mark the achievement, Wapda Chairman Zafar Mahmood lauded the project authorities for their “commitment, devotion and hard work in implementing this extremely difficult project”.

He expressed hope that the project would be completed in accordance with the revised schedule as most of the critical targets, such as river crossing connectivity of left and right headrace tunnels, had been achieved.

The Wapda chief expressed satisfaction over the working of both tunnel boring machines.

The chief executive officer of the project said the construction work on all sites was going at a good pace. He said that 80 per cent work on the dam and its allied structures had been completed, 90pc progress had been made on the headrace tunnel and 87pc on the power house.

He said Rs249 billion had been spent on the project.

The first electricity generating unit is expected to be completed by July next year and the remaining three units by the end of 2017.

The project will contribute 5.15bn units of low-cost, environment-friendly electricity to the national grid.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2016