Officials hope Melamchi tunnel will be ready by January

Kathmandu, Oct. 27: Tunnel construction work of the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) has not gained the desired momentum even after failing to meet the two deadlines set by the government.

The government earlier this year had promised to deliver water from the Melamchi River of Sindhupalchowk to the people of the Kathmandu Valley by the end of September.

About 1,400 metres of the tunnel are yet to be constructed.

Of the 27,584 metres of tunnel, 1,470 metres are still to be constructed. According to the Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDP), 199 metres of tunnel have been constructed in October so far.

MWSDP executive director Ram Chandra Devkota claimed that the tunnel construction would be completed by mid-January next year.

According to him, as the machinery and equipment were old and there were frequent breakdowns during work, the construction work was delayed.

"We are adding new equipment and heavy machinery, and hope that the work will be expedited," Devkota said.

The national pride project has been delayed by a decade, and its deadline has been extended multiple times in the past couple of years.

According to the second revised date, the project should have been completed by September 2016.

The Development Committee of the erstwhile Parliament had directed the government to complete the MWSP and begin water distribution in the Kathmandu Valley by October 2017.

However, that deadline has been missed.

As the tunnel construction couldn't be completed within the stipulated time, the Project Implementation Directorate (PID) of the Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Improvement Project is using the water from the Bagmati River to test the water distribution system.

The PID had laid 660 km of pipelines of a total of 730 km.

PID chief Tiresh Prasad Khatri said that the water from the Bagmati River was not sufficient to flush the long pipeline, so only some parts of the distribution network were being tested.

Delay in the testing the distribution system has halted the repair of the roads dug to lay the pipelines.

The US$ 355.4 million project is being developed by the government with financial support of $145 million from the Asian Development Bank.

The MWSP will deliver 170 million litres of water to the valley in the first phase, and the amount of water will reach 510 million by 2021, according to the government.

Progress at tunnel construction

Total length – 27,584 metres

Construction till September – 25,915 metres

Construction in October – 199.6 metres

To be constructed – 1,469.9 metres

Source: MWSP