Kathmandu, October 4

Project Implementation Directorate of Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited has completed 90 per cent work on the installation of pipelines for Melamchi Water Supply Project.

According to PID, of the 730 km pipelines, 660 km has already been laid so far.

Project Director at PID Tiresh Prasad Khatri said the remaining 10 per cent work on pipeline installation would be completed in the next three months.

“We are aiming to complete pipeline installation work by the end of this year,” Khatri told The Himalayan Times, adding, “Besides, PID has also begun testing pipelines by supplying water through the bulk distribution system.”

Khatri said pipeline installation work would be completed by December. The contracting company for Melamchi Water Supply Project, CMC Cooperativa Muratori e Cementisti di Ravenna, has set the target of achieving tunnel breakthrough by December this year. The contractor said it would complete the Ambathan-Gyalthum stretch of

the tunnel by November and the Gyalthum-Sindhu stretch by the end of December this year. The previous deadline for tunnel excavation expired in July.

Keeping in view additional three months’ time required for testing pipelines, Melamchi Water Supply Development Board has revised the deadline for supplying water to the Valley.

The board has said it will start  supplying water to Kathmandu Valley from March 26 next year. If everything goes as planned, Kathmandu Valley will receive 170,000,000 litres of water per day from the Melamchi River from March 2018.

In the second phase, the Melamchi project envisages supplying additional 340,000,000 litres of water per day to the Valley by channelling water from Yangri and Larke rivers of Sindhupalchowk district.

The project’s first deadline expired in 2007. It also missed the second deadline in 2016. On April 3 this year, the deadline was extended to October 2017. The tunnel breakthrough deadline was then set for July, but the project missed its target due to weak rock formation.

According to the project, 600 metre tunnel along the Ambathan-Gyalthum stretch and 1,000 metre tunnel along the Ambathan-Gyalthum stretch still remain to be excavated.

The 27.5 km tunnel comprises three stretches — Sundarijal-Sindhu, Sindhu-Gyalthum and Gyalthum-Ambathan. The three stretches cover 9.5 km, 8 km and 9 km respectively.

Of the three adit tunnels, the longest Sundarijal-Sindhu, which covers 9.5 km, was completed on December 26 last year.