Kathmandu, 7th January : Â The Development Committee under the Legislature-Parliament has called on the government for the speedy implementation of works of the much-awaited Melamchi Drinking Water Project as per the schedule as the works regarding the project were not found moving ahead in an effective manner.
The Committee issued the directive to the government to carry out the construction works of the project after preparing a schedule after the progress of construction of the physical infrastructures of the project was not found satisfactory, with just 21 months remaining to complete the
construction works of the project.
Only 17 per cent works regarding the tunnel construction has been completed so far as 40 per cent time of the deadline has been already spent, shows a study of the Committee.
More than 40 metres of tunnel is to be constructed in a day to complete the project on the deadline but only 30 metres is now being constructed daily.
Due to this, the Committee made the government aware to complete the construction works on time by preparing action plan and schedule after it was guarantee that the project would not be completed on the deadline.
The Committee also directed the Ministry of Urban Development for the availability of construction appliances, to carry out regular maintenance and repair of such tools and to provide 50 per cent additional human resources for the same.
It has given one month time to the ministry to end dillydallying, to increase inter-body coordination and to run the existing governmental mechanism in an effective manner.
According to the Construction Company, different problems including language, lack of human resource and construction materials, geographical condition are the reasons behind the delay in the construction works.
The Committee also asked the project to submit its progress report continuously and Urban Development Ministry, Ministry for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Management and Ministry for Federal Affairs and Local Developments to make necessary coordination among each other.
The Committee prepared a report and submitted it today to the Urban Development Ministry calling for the same.
A team of legislature-parliament’s committee members had been to Melamchi for an on-site visit to take the stock of the project.
The constriction of the Melamchi project is likely to complete by the mid of 2016.
Committee Chair Rabindra Adhikari, after monitoring the construction site, issued the directives to all the high-level officials of the concerned bodies to forward the construction works bearing in mind the timely completion of the project.
The Committee has also drawn the attention of the Ministry of Finance to augment the capacity of the water filter centre from 50,500,000 litres to 170,000,000 and to allocate adequate budget for the purpose. The Committee has also asked the National Planning Commission for the monitoring of the same.
Similarly, the Committee has concluded that the second round of infrastructure building to channel water from Yangri and Larke river would take six month of time, provided the construction work is accelerated.
Krishna Prasad Acharya, the Executive Director of the Melanchi Development Committee, emphasized the need to actively persue the construction work to achieve the target of taking Melamchi’s water to Kathmandu in the slated time.
The construction of the headworks (source of the water), tunnel and water filtering centre in Sundarijal in Kathmandu is taking place simultaneously.
For constructing the source, it is imperative to change the course of the river and to build a short tunnel for the sustainable operation of the project. The construction work of the tunnel is expected to finish shortly.
So far 10.2 kilo metre of tunnel has been constructed. 17 kilo metre of tunnel is due to construct.
Earlier, only 6444 metre of tunnel was built as the contract between the Melamchi Project and a Chinese Contractor Company was breached in 2012. Now the Italian Company CMC Di Ravena is taking charge of the project.
The directive from the legislature-parliament company has come forth the snag surfaced in the construction of the tunnel. The Committee has directed to further the construction with a proper action plan and a schedule.
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