Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB) has the responsibility to implement Phase 1 of the Melamchi Water Supply Project, including a tunnel to divert raw water from Melamchi river to a water treatment plant at Sundarijal, and construction of the water treatment plant with initial capacity of at least 170,000 m3/day expandable to 510,000 m3/day.
Phase 2, including construction of service reservoirs at several locations in the Valley, and of bulk distribution system pipelines to convey water from the water treatment plant to the service reservoirs, is implemented by the Project Implementation Directorate (PID) of Kathmandu Upatayaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL). It’s a public company with the objective of undertaking and managing the water supply and sanitation system of the Kathmandu Valley, operating under a License and Lease Agreement with the MWSDB for 30 years. Construction is underway of six reservoirs at Arubari (8500 m3), Mahankalchaur (8000 m3), Bansbari (9500 m3), Balaju 7000 m3) and Maharajgunj (7500 m3) in Kathmandu, and Khumaltar (9500 m3) in Lalitpur.
The initial capacity of the water treatment plant will be at least 170 ML/d and expandable to about 510 ML/d to treat the raw water coming from the Melamchi River.
The main Melamchi diversion tunnel (including adits) has a total length of 27.5
km of which 6.3 km has already been excavated under the previous contract.
The tunnel construction work by drill and blast for Melamchi Drinking Water Project in Nepal is likely to be completed by June 2017.
In August the contractor CMC Cooperativa Muratori e Cementisti at Ravenna, Italy, although 2015 devastating earthquakes and trade embargo imposed by India caused a delay on works, dug more than 1 km of the tunnel: the best performance since the beginning of the construction work in 2001.
The remaining 7.5km of the tunnel could be built by June 2017. It depends from rock condition, because there’s a 1,500 m section formed of calcareous soil where the advancement is 4-5m a day maximum.
Once the construction of the tunnel is over, it will take an additional 3-4 months for the project to supply water to Kathmandu. So the government, if everything goes as planned, will be able to supply Melamchi’s water to Kathmandu’s citizens by next year. Click here for further information on the project and np/14 for the tunnelbuilder archive. Visit http://www.melamchiwater.gov.np/. 38/16.
