MWSP plans to use water from the Bagmati for the pipeline testing from July

Kathmanduties to get much-awaited Melamchi water from coming October

The Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) is preparing to funnel water from the Bagmati River into the recently laid water supply pipelines in the Kathmandu Valley by the end of July this year.

This will not only bring drinking water to the houses, but also put an end to the dust menace in the valley.

“The financial progress at the construction site of the Water Treatment Plant (WTP) at Sundarijal is about 94 per cent, and we have completed the civil works and machine installation. The only thing remaining is the testing of the equipment and pipelines, which will be done with water from the Bagmati after three months,” said Prakash R. Shrestha, deputy team leader of the MWSP’s Water Treatment Plant at Sundarijal.

As the water of the Melamchi River in Sindhupalchowk district will only reach Sundarijal in October, the MWSP is planning to use water from the Bagmati for the pipeline testing.

The contractor of the MWSP tunnel, CMC, completed the 9-kilometre-long Sundarijal-Sindhu tunnel in December 2016, while about 4 km of a 5.5-km-long tunnel is under construction, which is needed to bring water from the Melamchi River to Sundarijal through a 27.5-km-long waterway.

“Therefore, we are planning to use water from the Bagmati. Although the work at the WTP will be completed in the next few months, the pipelines can’t be tested before July end as there will not be sufficient water in the Bagmati River,” said Shrestha. 

The treatment process includes addition of chemicals like lime and alum, flocculation, sedimentation, rapid sand filtration, disinfection, treated water storage and sludge consolidation.

“The WTP, developed in the first phase, has a capacity to treat 85 million litres of water per day. The treated water will then flow through a pipeline 1400 mm in diameter to 10 storage reservoirs around the Kathmandu Valley,” said Shrestha.

The MWSP has replaced most of the old pipelines and installed new ones to provide World Health Organisation (WHO) standard water.

“Therefore, utmost attention has been given while laying the water pipelines. Measures will be applied so as to prevent any leakage in the pipelines,” he said.

The tunnel will bring about 170 million litres of water per day from Melamchi in the first phase. So work to increase the capacity of the treatment plant to 170 MLD was started in January this year.

The contractor of the work, Tundi Pratibha Industries JV, has already started the excavation works.

Enhancement of the WTP’s capacity to 170 MLD will be completed in 1.5 years, said the MWSP.

Construction of another treatment plant will start soon as another 340 million litres of water from the Yangri and Larke Rivers will be available in the Kathmandu Valley by 2021.

After the completion of the first phase of the project, each household in the valley will get water supply for 4 hours a day.

The WTP has been developed at a cost of more than Rs. 3.2 billion.

The total cost of the project is Rs. 3.54 billion, of which about 70 per cent is supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in soft loans at 0.1 per cent interest while the rest is being borne by the government.

According to JICA, the loan will mature in 40 years.

Makoto Oyama, incharge of the Economic Cooperation Section at the Japanese Embassy, said that the project was a result of the consolidated ties between JICA and Nepal government.