MWSP and Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB) have not endorsed the contractor´s proposal, according to a source. "The construction work is not being carried out on a daily basis according to the timeline and the proposal is unacceptable", the source told myrepublica.com. [break]
Out of 1,590 working days, 400 days have already passed and only 14 percent of the work has been completed whereas by this period 28 percent of the work was expected to be completed, Project Director Hari Sharma said.
The government awarded the civil construction contract for the Melamchi project to the Chinese company for Rs. 4.28 billion. The project is to bring water from the Melamchi River in Sindhupalchowk district through a 26.5 km tunnel to Sundarijal in Kathmandu Valley.
In the initial days of the project, demands by local groups had obstructed construction work on the project.
According to a source at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, the project is already one year late if the construction schedule is to be followed strictly. As per the schedule, five meters of tunnel should be constructed per day but hardly three meters is constructed. In the past 66 days only 25 meters was constructed.
"This is much too slow and will not meet the deadline", one of the engineers at the project told myrepublica.com on condition of anonymity.
The deadline for completing work on the tunnel, which will bring 170 million liters of water into Kathmandu Valley, is September, 2013. In the next phase of the expanded project, the Yangri and Larke Rivers in Sindhupalchowk are to join the Melamchi to bring in 510 million liters of water per day. The tunnel is designed for 510 liters.
Explosives permit another time-consuming factor
Permission for explosives is another time consuming factor at the project.
According to the source, the Nepal Army (NA) is delaying permission for explosives to be used in tunnel construction. The project had asked to store the explosives at three convenient locations but NA has refused and said the explosives should be kept only at Melamchi Bazaar, which is 32 km from the project site.
"This is much too inconvenient and the NA should understand the ground reality and the nature of the construction work", the source said.
The project has proposed to buy five tons of explosives from NA and a significant amount of explosives is going to be imported from India.
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