The construction of the Kali Gandaki Transmission Corridor Project has been pushed back by another three months after a landslide felled a pylon on the Dana section between Annapurna Rural Municipality and Kushma Khurkot, Parbat district.

The delay means that nearly 19 megawatts generated by Thapa Khola (13.6 megawatts) and Ghalemdi (5 megawatts) will go to waste.

The landslide brought down the tower at Jaljala Rural Municipality in Parbat. The collapse has caused a loss of Rs20 million to the project. According to project officials, it will take at least three months to build a new tower.

There are 114 towers along the 42-km-long Dana-Kusma section of the 220 kV power line. As per officials, 16 towers are located in a high risk zone.

Before rain-triggered landslides destroyed part of the transmission line, the project was hamstrung by Covid-19 restrictions.

Yadav Neupane, assistant project manager, said a survey had been done to shift the location tower that fell down.

"We have started a new tender process as there will be more problems if the endangered poles are not protected immediately," he said. Studies are also being done to erect a new tower instead of the collapsed one, he said.

According to the project, the contractor company has submitted a proposal to replace the pole with a Lilo Line pole near Galeshwor to speed up the transmission line project.

The Lilo Line is a link line to connect the electricity produced by the 42 megawatt Rahughat Hydropower Project in Galeshwor to the 220 kV transmission line.

The project's completion deadline expired for the fourth time on March 30. The workers and technicians who went home following the lockdown were not able to return to work, paralysing the project.

The finishing work is being done with the help of around 110 workers, the contractor said.

The Beni-Jomsom road being built in the Kali Gandaki Corridor has been blocked due to obstruction by locals, the virus lockdown and landslides. The Beni office of the project has stated that 97 percent progress has been made on the economic side and 99 percent on the physical side.

The Nepal Electricity Authority had awarded a contract worth Rs2.90 billion for the construction of the Dana and Khurkot 220 kV, 132 kV, 33 kV and 11 kV Kali Gandaki corridor transmission lines and substations jointly to Tatachint joint venture, consisting of Indian company Tata and Chinese company Chint.

An agreement was signed between the project and the contractor on May 30, 2016 to complete the construction in November 2018. The project has not been able to complete the work even after the deadline was extended by a year.

The Kharkut-Bardaghat section of the transmission line will be connected to the Kali Gandaki Corridor covering Mustang, Myagdi and Myagdi Khola Corridor to cover the Myagdi Khola Reservoir Area, Modi Khola Reservoir Project in Parbat and the electricity generated from various hydropower projects in Waglang.

After the construction of the Kali Gandaki Corridor transmission line, 42 megawatts from Mistri Khola, 42 megawatts from Rahughat, 14 megawatts from Upper Kaligand, 146 megawatts from Kaligand, 38 megawatts from Nilgiri, a total of 450 megawatts of Kowang-Kaligandh electricity will be connected.

Similarly, electricity produced by Upper Rahughat (48.5 megawatts), Upper Kali Gandaki (72 megawatts) and Darwar Khola (25 megawatts) is planned to be connected to the 220 kV Kali Gandaki Corridor transmission line.