Minor improvements in pace of project implementation can be made by working on practices, behaviour or attitude. But in order to make significant improvement, an out of the box approach is required for accelerated development of hydro project. One of such actions which brought a major shift in paradigm at Koteshwar Project (400 MW), THDC India Ltd, Tehri (Uttarakhand), India is described here in the paper. Koteshwar project work was not progressing as per the agreement schedule due to several problems partly on part of the contractor and party due to administrative and technical reasons attributable to the owner. Up to the scheduled completion date of contract i.e. May 2006, a very limited quantity of concrete could be executed by the contractor. As an innovation (new arrangement), THDC adopted an out of the box approach to carry out works of Koteshwar Project at ‘Risk and Cost’ of the contractor by using existing man power, machines and other resources of the existing contractor without termination of the contract following steps were taken by THDC. This new arrangement proved to be fruitful as the entire project was completed in a record time of around 4 years and the project started serving the nation with 400MW of quality power.
