Melmachi by end of this year

Kathmandu, Mar 20

There are now symptoms that the water from the Melamchi River in Sindhupalchok will arrive in Kathmandu by the end of this year.

Progress in the tunnel finishing and head works construction – remaining two major works – at the project has shown hopes that the denizens may get the water by the end of 2019, said Rajendra Prasad Pant, Senior Divisional Engineer and Spokesperson of the Melamchi Water Supply Development Board.

The board, in September last year, had awarded the contract for the remaining works to Sinohydro, a Chinese Contractor, following the mid-time sudden exit of the Italian contractor CMC.

“The speed of work is satisfactory and the contractor is working with additional efforts to get bonus for the early completion of the work,” said Pant. The contractor will receive 10 per cent bonus if it completes the work 67 days before the deadline, January 2021.

As per the contract, Sinohydro should complete the tunnel in one year and headwork in 15 months.

Headwork construction, tunnel finishing, fitting the ventilation shaft, hydro-mechanical gates and monitoring equipment are being executed at the project.

The tunnel finishing work and pipeline connecting the tunnel and water treatment centres in Sundarijal are at the final stage.

Of the 27.6 km long tunnel, 25.9 will be used to carry water while the remaining is the audit tunnel. The CMC had finished the initial support work for about 24 km of the tunnel.

According to Pant, the contractor is planning to test the tunnel in July, about five months before the final deadline for the job completion.

Since the contractor was working with the aim to obtain the government announced bonus for early completion, it did not send the Chinese workers during the New Year which has saved the project from human resource crisis like the Kathmandu Ring Road and East-West Highway’s Narayangadh-Butwal section Expansion project. Work at these two projects has been affected as the Chinese workers went home to celebrate the New Year.

About 250 locals and 50 Chinese are working at the site in Sindhupalchok.

“If there were no serious impact of coronavirus, the work will move on smoothly. The contractor has also assured this to us,” said Pant.

The project aims to bring about 170 million litres water per day to the valley which will be supplied to the consumers inside the Ring Road and in Kirtipur and Katunje, Bhaktapur.

The water will reach  every house in the Valley after the completion of the second phase when additional 340 million litres water from Yangri and Larke rivers is brought here.

About 9 distribution systems are being ready to supply the water to the homes.

The national pride project has achieved about 90 per cent progress 18 years after its implementation. The project is delayed by a decade.

Settlement of the sub-contractors

Meanwhile, sub-contractors and vendors that worked for the CMC had submitted a letter to the board warning that the delay in settling their issues might force them to launch fresh protests.

They also warned to disturb the work at the site.

The CMC fled the country without paying about Rs. 1.5 billion to the sub-contractors and suppliers of the construction materials.

They have warned that if the issue is not settled within 15 days, they will go for protests, said Pant.

The government had tried to seek all-party consensus to make payment to the parties but couldn’t do so. Later, a technical committee led by a Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Water Supply had studied the matter and submitted a report with recommendation.

But the report was not implemented while the sub-contractors and vendors had been waiting to hear from the government.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 21 March 2020.