The Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) is back in the news. So is the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). The connecting rod is the breakage of the Melamchi water supply pipe. The ductile iron pipe carrying drinking water through the Thapathali crossing to hundreds of households across settlements in and around Nepal's pioneering maternity hospital at Thapathali burst the other day, disrupting the water supply. As per the news circulating around, half a million liters of potable water flooded the busy main road hosting Kathmandu's two busy hospitals. This is not the first time; nor will it be the last. The ductile iron water supply system that carries Melamchi waters across the inner Kathmandu settlements and neighborhoods keeps bursting as if the supply system is built and designed only to explode. According to the KUKL spokesperson himself, the supply system – meaning, the ductile pipe – has broken at least six times in the past five years. A similar incident had occurred not too long ago. On February 12th, there was a massive breakage at Babar Mahal. According to the estimate of KUKL, one million liters of drinking water flooded the Capital city's major highway at that time. Residents went without water for several days, until the system was restored. Elsewhere, the mains did go kaput at Naya Bazaar and Pulchowk, too.
The key question is why do the iron pipes break here, there and everywhere now and then? Ask KUKL and they point a finger at NEA. Based on its preliminary findings, the KUKL issued a statement saying that the system crashed due to gross recklessness of the NEA. According to the statement in question, the NEA was supposed to lay the underground cables at a gap of at least a meter or three feet from the ductile pipes but they did not. Apparently, as per KUKL, the electricity wires were laid just on top, too close to the mains. This is what KUKL had to say when the Babar Mahal pipe broke on February 12th. The KUKL position appears consistent on both the occasions. There has been no noteworthy response from NEA as yet. The country invested, or spent, a whopping nine billion rupees in laying the underground pipes following the devastating earthquake in 2015. It took five years to complete the project that passes through the major thoroughfares in the Capital city. Fingers are also being raised at the quality of the pipes used. The guesses and statements coming from responsible KUKL officials saying that Nepal does not have technology or laboratory to test the quality of the ductile iron pipes imported from India and China sound ridiculous. For, there are standard testing and certification requirements for the ductile iron pipes, and the factories that manufacture such pipes do have rigorous mechanisms for quality assurances. The buyer only needs to be sure and aware about its requirement specifications.
Also, what has again come to the surface is the lack of coordination between and among different agencies responsible for specific tasks. This has been a perennial problem in Nepal and it simply frustrates the common citizenry because it is them who have to bear the brunt irrespective of whoever may be responsible or whoever is at fault. In any case, the departments involved easily pass the buck around without having to take any responsibility for the wrongs done. Almost always these actors go unpunished, and the vicious cycle repeats. We have utterly failed to hold agencies to account.