10 pc pipe laying for Melamchi still remains

Kathmandu, Oct. 24:

Although the government had promised to deliver water from the Melamchi River in Sindhupalchowk to the tanks in Kathmandu’s houses by September this year, the Melamchi Water Supply Project is yet to finish the pipe laying works on a 60-kilometre section of the Kathmandu Valley.

The Project Implementation Directorate (PID) of the Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Improvement Project said that about 10 per cent of the underground pipe laying work still remained.

The project needs to lay 730 km of pipelines in the Kathmandu Valley, and by the end of the third week of October, 660 km had been laid.

Chief of the PID Tiresh Prasad Khatri said that the network of water pipelines would be completed by the end of December this year.

“We are slightly behind schedule. The monsoon and festivals disturbed the construction works,” he said.

According to him, only 4 km-long stretches – Pulchowk to Jawalakhel, Maitighar to Bhadrakali and New Baneshwor to Old Baneshwor – remain to be dug up.

Although these sections of the major roads must be dug to lay the pipes, there will not be much disturbance in the inner lanes as pipes of a smaller diameter will be laid there, which can be managed below the footpath.

However, the national pride project is marred by the slow progress at the tunnel construction sites in Sindhupalchowk.

Although the pipe laying works will be completed in a couple of months, Ram Chandra Devkota, executive director of the Melamchi Water Supply Development Board, said that the tunnel construction works are unlikely to finish before March next year,

The Water Treatment Plant (WTP) at Sundarijal has been completed, and the project has started to flush the pipeline with water from the Bagmati River.

Although the construction of the plant was completed some months ago, the project began testing the pipeline last month.

“Water from the Bagmati is not sufficient to test the 700 km pipeline. But we are trying to use it to test the transmission system in order to make at least some parts of the distribution network ready when the Melamchi water reaches the valley,” said Khatri.

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

Only after the completion of the testing of the distribution system, the roads that have been dug to lay the pipelines can be permanently blacktopped.

The pride project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, will carry 170 million litres of water per day from the Melamchi River to the Kathmandu Valley, and another 340 million litres of water from the Yangri and Larke rivers will be available by 2021.

The ADB has provided a total of US$ 145 million in loans for the $355.4 million project, while the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was involved in constructing the WTP at Sundarijal.