Few years back I visited this place at very high altitude near Palampur and Baijnath. In last few years, lot many hyderal projects have been started in Himachal and most of them are privately owned. Himachal Pradesh Government has some scheme due to which outsiders can also install their small scale projects in the state. Lot of investors from Andhra Pradesh have some well known projects in Shimla and Kinnaur regions.
Utrala is a very small place and situated at very high altitude, which is most important for hyderal projects and appropriate sloping is also critical. Whole place around this project is sort of virgin and naturally rich. Of course, road till this point is not as good now, because it's not maintained. In fact, this road has some dangerous curves and at times, it breaks due to landslides.
While driving around Baijnath, we thought of driving off-road and explore some of the villages around this area and reached Utrala. An isolated area away from hustle bustle of towns.
There was one caretaker at this place who allowed us to explore the project and also shared details about it's functioning - from where this water comes, how much water is needed, how the level is maintained in summers and monsoons, capacity of the project etc.
At times, unplanned trips surprise you with lot of unknowns and this was one of the pleasant surprise.
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