Melamchi civil contractor resumes tunnel work

Water might reach capital by mid-2017

KATHMANDU, March 7: The civil contractor of the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) has resumed work and has been close to meeting its daily quota of tunnel work in recent weeks.

Changing its previous tendency of dillydallying without any definite reason and piling complaints one after another, Italian contractor Cooperativa Muratori e Cementisti di Ravenna (CMC) has now accelerated its tunnel work, which is proceeding close to the daily requirement of 35 meters.

CMC is now digging the tunnels at five work faces out of six and officials estimate that resumption of tunnel work at the Ambathan face, the sixth work face, will mean the target of 35 meters per day will be met.

This means the contractor will dig at least one kilometer of tunnel per month and will complete the remaining 13 km of tunnel work in 13 months, thereby enabling Melamchi water to be diverted to Kathmandu by the middle of 2017. Altogether 14 km of tunnel has so far been completed out of the total of 27 km. It has been over two decades since the people of Kathmandu have been waiting for water from Melamchi.

With CMC foot-dragging since the beginning of last year and the earthquake and Indian blockade coming in the way, the deadline for bringing Melamchi water to Kathmandu by April 2016 is going to be missed and a new date has not yet been set.

Executive Director of MWSP, Ghanashyam Bhattarai, informed that CMC has now resumed work. However, it is still behind in its daily and monthly target for tunnel work. "We are providing 50,000 liters of diesel every week through a quota system," said Bhattarai, adding, however, that it was not clear why work at the Ambathan face is still stalled. The progress in tunnel work was below 18 meters per day from February last year till mid-February this year.

"If the contractor keeps up the pace and accelerates the work to meet the daily target of 35 meters, Melamchi water will reach Kathmandu by the middle of 2017," added Bhattarai.

Government officials don't know why the civil contractor has resumed work now and why it had been dillydallying for over a year. However, it is surmised that CMC has come under 'moral' pressure following a visit to the project on Feb 24 by a high-level delegation comprising the board of directors of the Asian Development Bank. The project loan agreement was signed in 2000, which makes the project one of the oldest among ADB-funded projects in the country that is yet to see completion.

CMC had been repeatedly piling pressure on MWSP for an advance payment of 5 million Euro to address its cash flow problem, but MWSP declined to oblige. MWSP's standing is that all payments to the contractor are made as per contracts and there is no pending liability.

The contractor would have been given an incentive of 0.05 percent of the total contract cost per day if it were to completed the project within September 2016, but it is not going to meet the deadline.

Though the given deadline will not be met, officials say CMC may get some time extension in view of the earthquake and the shortage of fuel and construction materials during the Indian blockade. But any claim for time extension should be justified and approved by the consultant for the project.

Spokesperson at MWSP, Rajendra Pant, said that work at the headwork for diverting water into the tunnel is 17 percent complete and it will be totally complete by the time the tunnel work is all done. "The work progress at the water treatment plant at Sundarijal is about 80 percent complete, Pant informed. MWSP officials also informed that the laying of pipelines from the mains to the end-users in Kathmandu will likewise be completed by that date