Power Corridor To Kashmir

Power Corridor To Kashmir

More than 3000 meter high mountains, 1150 transmission towers, more than 5000 km long steel aluminum conductor and 1 helicrane 450 million dollar and 36 month dead lines. Humans and machines had to fight against snow, wind, rain and the deep valleys to deliver light to the remote area of the valley.

This is Power Corridor To Kashmir.

The northern most state of India Jammu and Kashmir which is surrounded by the great Pir Ki Gali Mountains. The steep mountains are difficulty for any construction project and was same for this project but the joint venture of the human resource and the high tech machine made this much better. The designers , engineers and construction workers fought the difficult task and laid on 450 km transmission line and make the power reach to Kashmir Valley. 

Nearly 1.3 crore Kashmiri's had to face blackout and even worse in winter, when the temperature falls down below 0 degree. The old transmission line runs from Punjab to Kishenpur in Jammu, where land slides, rock falls and heavy snow fall has affected the transmission line which causes the blackout in the Valley. State Government has decided to light the valley with an all new power corridor which will run from the Surplus power supply state Punjab's Jalandhar to Samba in Jammu and then runs near the border and passes the Pir Ki Gali Pass and then riches the new Amargarh Transmission Power House which is in Baralmulla District. This line is almost 4 times longer than the older one and wll be the first one to connect the Main Power Grid to Kashmir Valley. This new proposed power line is a part of NRSS 2019 which is to be started from 240 meter above the sea level which will end at 3000 meter above sea level and will rise 2700 meter high. When completed, this transmission line will supply 1000 M watt to Kashmir, which will be double the energy now being supplied. 

Problem faced by the Government was that their were only 2 bidder for the project and the snow fall and extreme winters has made the situation more worse. But finally the Sterlite Power Company which assured to complete the project 12 month before the schedule which accepted the challenges. The company was only 6 years old which used to connect the villages to city by the main power grid which was done in the state of Maharashtra and Assam. Power transmission building experience was enough with the company but the geography of the Valley was the biggest problem. The company when saw the project wanted to do this project for the people of Kashmir and took this challenge as fun, because the project could have taken much more time but their would be no competition.

The 5000 km long conductors will run in 12 parallel lines on well build transmission tower and heavily reinforced base. The 1/4 part was to be done on the flat plains and was completed with 12 month still remaining for the same. The other 3/4 part was then verified and identification of location and then the designers had divided the towers in to 4 parts where they divided the project with the change in the slope and snow fall pattern. The tower weight and wind flow was also considered. The parts were:

• Gental Slope Without Snow
• Hilly Without Snow
• Hilly With Snow
• Semi Hilly With Snow

The Designers build the tower such a way that they can uphold the wind, snow and rain. They made changes in the default setting with taking the wind flow upmost and the thickness was also increased so as to decrease the effect of wind and snow. Th conductor was also increased in the diameter. This made the designers not to worry for the Seismic Load and as this is Pin Jointed structure so the load will be easily transferred to the ground. To finalized the plans the engineers saw the plans and finalized it. This was claimed to be staying for 50 years and in every circumstances. 

The materials were traditionally were to slow and here the tower weight was also to heavy which was some times even more than 8 Elephants. The company finalized to order the Heli-Crane which was order from the ERICKSON AIR CRANE, so as to complete the project within time because after looking the technology around the world, to execute this project the only easy way was air transport.

The transmission towers were than build by this Heli-Crane which speed up the project. Also the climate in the valley had made some days and even weeks without working which was a great loss for the company because the cost of the Heli-Crane itself was 1000's of dollars for hours. Both the technology and crew made the work possible and then the work was finally completed and the company made a mark in the Civil Engineering field.