Kathmandu, March 15:

The Nepali Army will complete the unfinished portion of the access road to Upper Tamakoshi Hydroelectric Project (UTHP), project director of the UTHP Mrigendra Bahadur Shrestha said today.

The UTHP has also annulled the contract awarded to PR Prakash Construction Joint Ventures, as it could not complete the construction of the access road on time. The contractor was supposed to complete the 6.5 km access road in 18 months. But it could construct only four kilometres of the road in three years, Shrestha said.

The Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Limited, a subsidiary of Nepal Electricity Authority, is negotiating with Nepali Army through the Defence Ministry to deploy the Nepali Army’s engineering unit for the construction.

The UTHP, located in Dolakha district, is a peaking run-of-river type project with installed capacity of 456 MW. It has to be completed by 2013 with financial and technical resources from within the country.