PoK: Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project put to halt after cracks in tailrace tunnel

Muzaffarabad [PoK], July 7 : Amid the continuous shortage of fuel and electricity in Pakistan, the country received yet another shock after its mega 969-megawatt Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has been shut down due to major cracks in the tailrace tunnel.
Pakistan's Federal Power Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan said, "Neelum-Jhelum is unfortunately offline. Details of its suspension or fault have not been concluded yet."
He said that thorough investigations are currently underway of all its channels, which are deep and long, some of them under huge mountains, the Dawn reported.
The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), which operates hydropower stations, later also confirmed that the project's "tailrace tunnel has been blocked and as a result the power station has been closed for safety reasons".
"The reasons for the closure of the tailrace tunnel are currently being investigated. Steps would be taken to remove the blockade of the tailrace once the reasons are known," Wapda said in a statement issued in Urdu.
The Neelum-Jhelum hydropower plant, completed at an estimated approved cost of about Rs508bn, became functional in August 2018 and has a capacity of producing around 1,500 MW of electricity.
The project's construction was taken in hand in 2002 after 21 years of delay and completed in April 2018 -- again with repeated cost overruns and missed deadlines, the Dawn reported.
Major construction involving about 58 kilometres of tunnels was done by Chinese contractor CGGC-CMEC (Gezhouba Group), hired in December 2007.
Earlier, this week, People in Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan took to the streets against the prolonged load shedding and water scarcity amid scorching heat.
They raised anti-Pakistan slogans and demanded 'Islamabad free' Kashmir and other parts that it has illegally occupied for decades.
They held banners reading 'stop land grabbing and occupying hilltops of PoK' and 'terrorist infrastructure must be dismantled'. While addressing the demonstrators, Shaukat Ali Kashmiri said Pakistan has given free hand to the army and they are increasingly involved in human rights violations in the region.
Amid the economic shutdown, the the country lies in the abyss of electricity outages which is disrupting life and business.
Multiple plants were shut down after the Pakistani government failed to pay dues to the tune of 300 billion rupees (USD 1.5 billion) to the Chinese power supplies.
Pakistan's inflation rate increased to 21.32 per cent in the month of June, the highest in over 13 years, a media report said on Friday.
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has stated that in May, the inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 13.76 per cent. The inflation increased by 6.34 per cent month-on-month (MoM) and reached 21.32 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in June, the Dawn newspaper reported.
Earlier, the highest inflation stood at 23.3 per cent in December 2008.