The 800-MW Kol Dam hydro power project on the Sutlej being executed by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) here is running behind schedule by five years, that has shot up its cost by about Rs 400 crore. The project has now been scheduled for completion in March 2014. The NTPC had initially targeted to complete the project in 2009-10 at a cost of Rs 5,640 crore. According to the revised schedule of the NTPC, the cost of the project has shot up to Rs 6,000 crore and can be revised further if the project is not commissioned in 2014. As a result of the delay, Himachal Pradesh is losing 366.48 million units of electricity it will get as 12 per cent free share of the 3,054 million units that the project will generate every year. “We will start ponding water in October 2013. We have no issue with the Bhakra Dam as we will not divert the entire Sutlej to fill the dam,” said AK Nanda, General Manager, Kol Dam. Union Power Minister KC Venugopal had recently inspected the project and pulled up the hydro power engineer over slow work. The NTPC attributed the delay to unexplained geological surprises. “The project will be commissioned in 2014. Work on the powerhouse and transmission line is almost complete,” Nanda said. He was non-committal on the deadline. SUNDERNAGAR: Addressing mediapersons on Friday, AK Nanda said the project would give 12 per cent free power, 15 per cent at bus bar and 2.5 per cent through grid allocation to the state government. He said only some work on filling, the spillway and the fillip bucket were left. He said 98 per cent of the work on filling was done only 12 metres of the 163-metre-high dam was yet to be completed. He said filling would be started after the monsoon next year and the reservoir would be filled as per the schedule formulated by expert agencies. He said the reservoir would be spread over 42 km and would have a capacity of 52,000 hectare metre. He said the rate of filing it would be between 0.3 metre and 0.6 metre per day and it would take 315 days to fill it.