Proper Selection of Equipments and Successful Management of Huge Fleet of Plant for 17.69 Km Long Teesta Head Race Tunnel, Sikkim, India - A Case Study

Successful selection of right kind of plants is the key of success in any mega project. Lot of Projects are suffering due to wrong selection of plant resulting time and cost over run. Teesta HRT 17.69 km long 9.5 m Dia Tunnel for Teesta H.E. Project stage-V (510 MW) recently completed in the beautiful Himalayan state of Sikkim, India. Tunnel was bored using Heading, Benching method from 3 Adits and 6 faces. Lot of Geological problems were encountered during execution and selection of plant was really the key of success. In this paper we will elaborate successful planning for plant management and rightly selection of plant based on the site requirement, we will also describe the plant selected and in house innovation done at our central workshop and workshops established at each adit for optimum utilization of plant.

Main feature of this paper is that the work completed ahead of schedule and we saved approximate one year and ensured commissioning even after all odds. Variety of plants like Tamrock drill jumbos- 6 nos, Excavators- 15 nos, schwing shotcrete machines- 8 nos, concrete pumps BP-1800- 7 nos, DG sets (CAT make) 500KVA- 15 nos, Transit Mixers- 36 nos, Scissor Platforms- 6 nos, Tippers- 100 nos, Batching Plants- 8 nos, Crusher plant 100 T capacity- 3 nos, JCB- 3 nos and cranes- 3 nos were used and Optimum utilization of plant ensured by providing preventive maintenance and keeping in house inventory for tackling any emergency.

We are sure that this case study will be helpful for practicing tunnel engineers for tackling similar situation for ongoing works.