Modnath Dhakal

Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) is likely to become the first national pride project to be completed since the announcement of the pride projects about a decade ago. It has beaten the Bhairahawa-based Gautam Buddha International Airport supposed to come into operation in January 2020 with the launching of the 'Visit Nepal Year 2020' that was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. As per the latest reports, the Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project, the largest in the sector with 456 megawatt, will also be completed within the current Fiscal Year 2020/21. But the completion of Melamchi after about 23 years since its announcement and 19 years of its implementation has raised myriad questions with regard to the handling and management of the infrastructure development projects in Nepal.

A project of hope
Melamchi was not just a development project but a hope that the people in the Kathmandu Valley lived with for more than two decades. It was like a mirage for it missed several deadlines of completion. The then late Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, in 1999, had made an amusing remark that people could even wash the roads in the Valley with the water from Melamchi. The MWSP was slated to be completed in 2008 but the water from the Melamchi River located in Sindhupalchok district has just reached Sundarijal last Saturday, March 6. The project had started filling the 26-km-long tunnel with water since 22 February and the water was let to make its way into the Bagmati River in Kathmandu. Although the water treatment facility was ready at Sundarijal, water is not channeled to it since the first lot of the water stored in the tunnel came with dirt as it was used to clean the tunnel.
As per the plan, the tunnel would be cleaned first. When the water stored in the tunnel is emptied, engineers and technicians will observe the tunnel for the final repair and water would be sent to the treatment plant only after completing this process. The water from the plant will be sent to 10 storage reservoirs around the Valley. The project had started to fill the tunnel earlier in July last year but as one of the gates of the tunnel crashed, it failed to withhold the gushing water which killed two employees, forcing it to postpone the filling process for the time being.
Considering that the locally available water resources would be unable to meet the rising demand of drinking water in the capital city, the government in 1963 had begun to find potential sources of water. In 1975, a study had identified various 22 alternatives as the solution. However, another study in 1992 concluded that the water supply from Melamchi, Yangri and Larke rivers in Sindhupalchok district could be the best option for the water supply in the Kathmandu Valley. As per the plan, 170 million litres water a day (MLD) would be brought to Kathmandu from each of these rivers.
Had the project been completed in 2008, it would have brought smiles to the thirsty people in the valley since the total demand for water then was 325 MLD which has increased to 500 MLD now. The government is planning to supply water only inside the Ring Road in the Valley in the first phase. The second and third phases of the project that aims to bring 340 MLD water from Yangri and Larke rivers would have been competed by now but they have not kicked off yet. It is not that all the civil works of the project were completed. Head works are yet to be developed but the project had created a temporary dam and sent water to the tunnel through a diversion tunnel. However, the project has promised to complete it within the current fiscal year.

Development maladies
The MWSP was delayed although it was implemented after thorough planning and had guidance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The process-oriented project execution and red-tapism had severe repercussions on the project. In the early days of the project, the local people used to come up with new demands every other day. The project was disturbed for days while it provided economic and physical supports to multitudes of organisations ranging from the political parties to mothers' groups. For the political parties and local people, MWSP was a milking cow which could be milked at any time for any purpose from building a football ground to making food arrangement. The project was slightly affected due to the Maoist armed rebellion as well.
There were also other factors behind the delayed execution of project. They included the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, Indian blockade and the coronavirus pandemic. Probably, the worst case in the project was the fleeing of the Italian contractor company CMC that left the work in the middle two years ago. The government could have persuaded the CMC to stay back and complete the project with some additional compensation but it failed resulting in the loss of more than Rs. 2 billion. The CMC had left of about Rs. 1.53 billion unsettled dues. Likewise, the project failed to take the civil works of tunnel and head works simultaneously in the final days. When the former was ready, construction of the latter was not even started.
Finally, there were many promises on the part of the government. Every prime minister and water supply minister set a deadline on their own, and tried to assure people that the water from Melamchi would flow into the taps of Valley’s households within a year. However, their hollow pledges often vanished into the thin air, wasting valuable time of project implementation and missing deadlines. Many lawmakers, including the members of the Development and Technology Committee of the parliament suggested that there should be more effective monitoring of the large infrastructure projects from the legislative body for their timely and quality implementation.
In order to become the middle-income country and meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, Nepal should invest at least US$ 7 to 9 billion in the infrastructure annually but it is imperative to address the elements that often put the skids under the big projects like MWSP. One such hurdle is the existing public procurement laws and procedures which need to be amended to smoothen the difficulties in project execution as well as create an investment-friendly atmosphere. Moreover, political will and stability is essential to expediting the pride projects, thereby creating jobs and boosting the national economy.

(Dhakal is a TRN journalist)