Melamchi water likely to come to Valley within two months

Kathmandu, Dec. 2

The Ministry of Water Supply (MoWSS) has said that the water of Melamchi will be supplied in the Kathmandu Valley in February 2019 at the earliest.

Secretary at the Ministry Gajendra Kumar Thakur claimed at the meeting of the Parliament's Development and Technology Committee that the water from the Melamchi River would come to the valley within 60 days.

This means that the water will be supplied to the homes in the valley only by the end of the current fiscal year, making mockery of the multiple commitments of the ministers and Prime Ministers in the past.

According to the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSS), it takes about six months to clean the distribution system and regulate the water supply.

Earlier, several months ago, Minister for Water Supply Bina Magar had promised to complete the project by Dashain.

Erstwhile Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ had also promised that the project would be completed by Dashain in 2017. He even reached the project site and directed the contractors and MWSP to complete the project in time.

But the progress of the national pride project commenced about 16 years ago is poor. According to the National Planning Commission (NPC) assessment, made a couple of months ago, the project has achieved 84 per cent physical and 87.4 per cent financial progress and  has become one of the most delayed large infrastructure projects in the country.

Secretary Thakur apologised for not fulfilling the commitments made earlier.

He said that in the beginning the water will be supplied from the existing old distribution system. The MWSS is still laying pipelines in some locations like Kalanki, Kuleshwor and in the inner city areas.

He also said that the tunnel finishing work had been expedited.

" Work in about 90 metresis finished every day," he said.

The same parliamentary committee, in August this year, had said that the frequent postponement of the dates to supply drinking water from the Melamchi project had raised questions over the trustworthiness of the government.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded MWSP will bring 170 million litres of water to the Kathmandu Valley and sub-project that will be taken up in the second phase, will add 340 million litres water from the Yangri and Larke rivers.

The ADB has lent Nepal $170 million through the Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Improvement Project to expand the Sundarijal water treatment plant, modernise the distribution network, construct large storage tanks, rehabilitate the existing infrastructure, and strengthen the KUKL.

Published in The Rising Nepal dail on 3 December 2018.