The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The 1,200 MW Punatsangchu I project and the 1,020 MW Punatsangchu II project have been in the headlines for mainly wrong reasons in the last one-decade.
The failures in these two projects have been chalked down to ‘Geological Surprises,’ but a closer look shows that it is not just geological surprises but also the incompetence of the project consultants WAPCOS and CWC.
In short, both the agencies did a shoddy job in the two projects in not identifying the right bank weakness in P I, and also the weakness in underground power house in P II.
The mistakes have cost us billions in additional project cost, billions in lost revenue and a lot of wasted time.
The issues in P I and P II also partly impacted the bilateral 10,000 MW by 2020 which is why GoI has pulled out of such projects and Bhutan is scrambling to raise billions of dollars for projects after offering stakes to foreign private investors.
It is ironical that both governments are still relying on advice from WAPCOS and CWC to resolve the issues in both the projects with no independent oversight.
Some may think that WAPCOS and CWC are GoI owned companies and any criticism of them is sensitive, but even if it’s a patriotic Indian they will also do the same.
The lapses by these two consultants have cost billions for India too, including 6 Indian lives.
This is why Indian experts and former senior government and technical officials are coming forward to hold WAPCOS and CWC accountable.
The above is not to say that the P I and P II projects were easy as any hydro project of a major size is challenging in any part of the world. This is all the more reason that technical experts should go by detailed research instead of assumptions and they should have the humility to acknowledge and listen to other experts in the field too.
In both the projects, warnings were given early on to WAPCOS and CWC that there are major issues but they disregarded the advice or the warning and went ahead blindly.
A big lesson from the debacles is to avoid a conflict of interest scenario where the same hydro consultancy is doing the DPR or other studies and the same company is the technical expert approving them.
“It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn’t.”
Martin Van Buren