NEW DELHI, MAY 20 Committed to building infrastructure in Afghanistan, the government is all set to clear the Rs 500 crore Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul power transmission project that will bring the much-needed Uzbek power for the capital. The project is to be executed by the Power Grid Corporation.

Sources said that the Finance Ministry has already approved the key project after a nod from the committee on non-planned expenditure. It is now waiting for a green signal from the Cabinet after which the public sector undertaking would take on the construction of the 205 km transmission line.

As part of the reconstruction exercise, Kabul would be getting 300 MW of power from a hydel power venture in Uzbekistan. Power would first be evacuated from the power station all the way upto Pul-e-Khumri and thereon to Kabul.

Speaking to The Indian Express, chairman of PGC, R P Singh, said that the first leg is to be executed with funding from the Asian Development Bank while the Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul leg is being financed by the government of India.

Company executives also mentioned that appropriate bidders had not been identified for the Uzbekistan to Pul-e-Khumri leg.

However, the second leg would be a 220 KV transmission line built over the Hindu Kush range with some parts of the project that need to be constructed at a height of around 4,000 metres.

PGC has already conducted a pre-feasibility study for the project and held a pre-bid vendor conference this morning at its head office.

Singh said that the project has two challenging parts. There’s only one road connecting Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul. In addition to this, the road is peppered with land mines with their concentration increasing as one gets closer to Kabul. The second difficult part of the project is a 30-40 km stretch along the high reaches which is covered with snow for around nine months of the year.

Apart from help from de-miners, some of the company executives who visited the area for the pre-feasibility study said that they may also use the help of locals to identify which parts of the road were dangerous and which weren’t.

Company executives said that they need around 42 months to finish the entire project, which can be brought down to around 36 months as they need three seasons to finish the stretch that is covered with snow and ice.

On the financial part of the project, PGC would be allowed to spend only around Rs 50 crore for local procurement (cement for instance) while most of the material (wires, cables, towers et al) would have to be procured from Indian vendors, they said.