Sluggish Melamchi may miss third deadline

SINDHUPALCHOWK, July 15: Melamchi Drinking Water Project is set to miss its third deadline as only half of the total 26.5 kilometers pipelines for the project have been laid so far.

The latest deadline, which was extended for the third to mid-2016, will expire in less than 14 months.

Despite all the hype surrounding the national pride project that is always accorded top priority during the annual budget, the progress in implementation leaves much to be desired.

The first deadline for the drinking water project, which is expected to supply 170 million liters of water on a daily basis, was set for 2007. But 15 years after the deadline expired, the project is yet to accomplish its goals.

Even to this day the authorities can not definitively say when the Melamchi project will be completed.

Ghanashyam Bhattarai, executive director of Melamchi project, blamed the contractor for delaying the project.

After China Railway 15 Bureau Group Corporation left the project midway completing 6.5-km tunnel in three and half years, the contract was awarded to an Italian contractor Cooperative and Muratorie Cementisti di Ravenna (CMC). It had agreed to complete digging of 26.5-km tunnel in five years.

But CMC has already missed the deadline as per Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB).

Although construction works, briefly stalled following the April 25 earthquake, has resumed, the task has been mostly limited to removing the obstructions caused by the disaster. The project team has not even conducted the assessment of the full extent of the damage caused by the earthquake.

"A technical team has started assessing the damage within the tunnel," said executive director Bhattarai.

In order to complete the project within 14 months, the Italian contactor will have to dig tunnel at the rate of 1 km per month.

Over Rs 7 billion has already been spent to implement the project.1970