Koldam Dam

The Koldam Dam Hydropower Project commonly known as KolDam, is an embankment dam on the Satluj River upstream of the Dehar Power House. It is 18 km from Bilaspur off the Chandigarh-Manali Highway (NH-21) near Barmana, Himachal Pradesh. The main purpose of the dam is hydroelectric power generation and it will support an 800 MW power station. The dam was constructed by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).The foundation stone for the dam was laid on 5 June 2000 by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. On 14 January 2004, main construction on the dam began. Due to problems associated with habitat and forest loss, the project has been delayed. Attempts to impound the reservoir first failed in December 2013 due to problems with sealing the diversion tunnels. By 18 March 2014, a fourth attempt to seal the tunnels and fill the lake was underway. Repairs were made and another unsuccessful impounding was reached in April 2014 as the diversion tunnel continued to leak. Another period of impounding began on 3 November 2014 and finished on 3 January 2015. A tunnel still leaked though but authorities were confident they would have the power station operational by April. Generator commissioning was originally scheduled for 2009 but was rescheduled to 2015.Power Generation CapacityIts installed capacity is of 800 MW . The first 200 MW Francis turbine-generator was commissioned on 30 March 2015 and the third on 10 April 2015.