Kathmandu, April 10

Melamchi Water Supply Project today said it had achieved tunnel breakthrough after completing work on digging the 27-km tunnel 20 years after it began work on the project.

Minister for Water Supply and Sanitation Bina Magar at a press meet organised at the ministry said, “We have completed tunnel excavation work and we promise that Melamchi water will be supplied to Kathmandu before Dashain.”

Water can be supplied through the tunnel only after concretising the structure. Executive Director of MWSP Ram Chandra Devkota said, “We will now ask the contractor to utilise all its resources to complete the tunnel work within three months.”

Headworks, diversion weir, intake structures and desiccating basin at the origin of water source in Ambathan have yet to be constructed. The headworks are important to maintain the water level in the tunnel and more importantly dirt sedimentation and water treatment at the source. MWSP is planning to supply water directly through a 60-metre additional pipeline even before construction of headwork structures. The pipeline will be attached to the tunnel on the one side and to the river on the other side.

Likewise, the treatment plant at Sundarijal does not have enough capacity to treat all the water  supplied through the tunnel. It is estimated that 170 million litres of water will be supplied to Kathmandu everyday in the first phase. But the plant at Sundarijal is capable of treating only half the volume of water supplied. MWSP said the second water treatment plant will be constructed by the end of 2018.

Devkota said, “The Sundarijal plant will be ‘overloaded’ until another treatment plant is constructed.”

Similarly, Director General of Department of Water Supply and Sewerage Tej Raj Bhatta said that out of 1,000 km pipelines in the inner city, laying of 900 km pipelines had already completed.

A press release issued by the MWSP stated that the Melamchi sub-project 1, which is largely associated with tunnel construction had spent Rs 24.22 billion so far out of estimated Rs 27.76  billion.