Kathmandu, Sept. 29
The Melamchi Water Supply Development Board Tuesday awarded the contract
of tunnel finishing works of the Melamchi Water Supply Project to Sinohydro, a
Chinese contractor that recently concluded the civil engineering tasks at the
Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project.
The board has signed two agreements to finish the tunnel. There will be
another agreement for the construction of the head work in a few days.
Executive Director of the MWSDB Tiresh Khatri and Sinohydro’s
representative Wang Hua signed the agreement.
MWSDB has given the responsibility to complete the remaining works of
the project after about nine months since the Italian contractor CMC abandoned
the project without informing the board and fled the country.
Some months were passed in an effort to persuade the CMC to resume the
work at the site while some were spent in estimating the cost of the remaining
works, preparing the tender and resolving the issues with the sub-contractors
and local vendors who supplied the construction materials and heavy equipment.
According to the board, the contractor should start the work within a
month from the signing of the agreement. Since Sinohydro has recently completed
the civil works at the Tamakoshi, it has its equipment ready for the work.
Sinohydro should finish the tunnel within a year while the head work
should be completed in 15 months.
Headwork construction, tunnel
finishing, fitting the ventilation shaft, hydro-mechanical gates and monitoring
equipment are yet to be executed.
The MWSDB – implementing agency of the water transmission
part of the project – had terminated the contract with the CMC after the latter
failed to respond to the board’s communication efforts.
The national pride project has achieved about 90
per cent progress after 17 years of its implementation. The project is delayed
by a decade.
According to the latest timeline prepared by the
project, it will not be completed before 2021.
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