Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project - pillar of energy sector :

Making Lanka wonder of Asia

In line with Mahinda Chintana Power and Energy Policy :

Ariya Rubasinghe

The Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project has invigorated the life standards of the people in the Talawakelle and surrounding areas. This project which was to be launched in the 1980s, never saw the day of light due to political expediency and various other reasons and intimidation, until President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power in 2005 and took the bold decision to proceed with the construction of this project, regardless of

Upper Kotmale project tunnel

political pressure or otherwise and in line with the pledge given under the Power and Energy Policy in the Mahinda Chintana ‘to build coal and hydro-power projects expeditiously’

The Cabinet of Ministers took a decision on April 7, 2005 to construct the Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project. On July 27, 2005 the contracts relating to the preparatory work was awarded to the Maeda Corporation of Japan. Thus started the launching of this massive Hydro Power project, the third hydropower project in Sri Lanka, the other two being Pahala Kotmale and the Kukuleganga Hydro Power projects.

The total estimated cost of the project amounts to 384 million US$ of which 297 million US$ have been provided by the Japan International corporation Agency (JICA) as a project loan with 10 years grace period and repayable in 40 years at 0.95 percent interest. Upon completion the project will add 150 MW electricity supply to the national grid.

Since then the project has proceeded smoothly surmounting all obstacles providing a ray of hope to the people of Talawakelle, Kotmale areas and progressing forward as a pillar of the energy sector that would become one of the key factors making Sri Lanka the wonder nation of the Asia.

Infrastructure development

By end of August 72 percent work of the project had been completed. Along with the project the government has carried out many other infrastructure construction work which include construction of nearly 400 housing units for resettlement of families who get displaced or affected by the project, building modern Schools, building a Cinema Theatre, and construction of government buildings and facilities required for providing educational, medical, administrative and other services.

The project has been divided into five categories and has been awarded to different Japanese contractors. Progress on preparatory work, main civil works and hydro mechanical works are nearing completion while over 50 percent of the work related to electro mechanical work and transmission lines have been completed.

A group of media personnel organized by the Media Centre for National Development of the Ministry of Mass Media and Information visited the project sites and locations recently was able to obtain first-hand knowledge of the work being carried out, facilities provided, sentiments of the people resettled and make physical visits and observations at various locations of the project.

Entrance to the main tunnel

Under the preparatory work construction of new access roads with drains, culverts and bridges have been completed. This includes construction of a new 33 km road connecting A-5 (Peradeniya to Nuwara Eliya Road) and A-7 (Awissawela to Nuwara Eliya Road) named Tawalantenne Road.

This road has 150 culverts, seven minor bridges and I major bridge. A-3 storied Office Complex has been built for housing the Talawakelle Urban Council.

The Talawakelle Tamil School had been functioning on a dilapidated old tea factory building and had not seen repairs for ages. Since this structure comes under the area that will be inundated and also to serve the settled families, the project has built three classroom complexes of three stories each, which will now have facility for students in the area to study from Grade One to Grade 13. The school complexes will have 52 classrooms, six laboratories, I library, one computer centre, one auditorium, a canteen, and principal office and staff room.

Resettlement of people

The most glaring and the most picturesque site was the green colour-roofed housing units dotting as several groups in the adjoining high elevated areas. This includes 495 housing units, 33 shops, six workshops, six libraries, three kovils and two churches.

There had been 489 families who were resident in the Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project Area prior to commencement of the project.

Many of them were living in tin-roofed line rooms which had one verandah and a room with no separate kitchen or bathroom facility, forced to use one bathroom by several families.

In fulfilling the government’s promise to provide them better housing facilities, the new modern housing units have been constructed by the project and all affected people have been settled.

These people who had been living in the nine settlements of Kumaragama, Devisiripura, Talawakelle, Ratneelakele, Middlton Bar, Middleton Division, Walkers. UC Scavengers compound and Nanuoya Division have been resettled in six settlements, allowing integration on their own and allocating housing units from six types of houses based on land they used to occupy previous starting from 0-400 sq.ft. These housing units have been provided with all amenities including water, electricity, light fixtures and ceiling fans.

The housing units also range from two- five bedrooms with bathrooms, halls, kitchen etc, and each housing unit is built on seven-ten perches land area.

Home gardening

Underground power station

Seventy-five percent of the people resettled in these new housing units are Tamils and the rest 22 percent are Sinhalese and three percent Muslims. Many of the occupants have taken to home gardening as well around their new dwellings and have planted various types of flowers, and vegetables such as salad, beetroot, tomato, beans, carrot, brinjal and radish.

To compensate those who were growing vegetables in the previous settlement areas 42 plots of land have been provided to them to grow vegetables. To facilitate the occupants of the new houses to meet their day-today purchasing needs two cooperative shops have also been established in addition to shops provided for those affected.

Residents interviewed by the media groups expressed their happiness about getting such modern housing units, which some of them said they could have never built or dreamt of having on their own, and were grateful to President Mahinda Rajapaksa for undertaking to built the Upper Kotmale Project which had been almost abandoned due to political expediency and other reasons and providing them all the facilities they require.

Among the other construction work include a rest house, a playground, and a modern Cinema Hall to replace the wooden planked Cinema Hall that existed in Talawakelle.

Sri Lanka’s longest mountain tunnel

The icon of this massive project is the 13km long 5.8m width tunnel which runs cutting through the Talawakelle-Niyamgamdora mountain range. The drilling of the tunnel, the major work of the project has been completed and the concreting of the floor is being carried out. Travelling through this tunnel was a fascination journey for the media crew.

New housing scheme. Pictures by Sudam Gunasinghe

Despite comments by certain cynics that the tunnel route is not hold water and would collapse, the engineers confirmed that the entire tunnel route was found to be consisting solid base rocks and in addition to this filling of intermittent areas with reinforced concrete has also been done. Construction of Concrete Gravity Dam of 157x35x7m and the surge tank of 12m diameter and 94m height, as well as construction of the under group power house complex and switchyard are presently under way 90 percent of the construction of the Dam has been completed.

The intake of water will take place at Talawakelle, and after passing through the tunnel, would spread into two at the power house area to provide the force required to generation of power by turbines and then will be outflawed at Niyamgamdora tunnel exist to the pond area to connect with the Kotamale Oya.

Several Sri Lankan Engineers are working with dedication filled national spirit along with their Japanese counterparts to expedite the project and make it a success. Since the Electro Mechanical Equipment, and Transmission related work are bound to take some due to the sophisticated nature of this part of the project, the project is expected to be completed by end of 2011.

The writer is the Director Media and Information Ministry, Media Centre for National Development