Kathmandu, October 6

Melamchi Water Supply Project has been wasting 30 million litres of treated water by dumping it into the Bagmati River in Sundarijal for the last three days.

According to the project, although it planned to distribute treated water through pipelines from Wednesday, but had to dump it into the Bagmati River due to defects in the pipeline installed by Project Implementation Directorate at Bhairabchaur Danda of Gokerneshwor Municipality -4.

“We couldn’t wait long enough for the PID to repair water pipelines, so we began test operation of the treatment plant from October 4,” Deputy Executive Director at Melamchi Water Supply Development Board  Ramakanta Duwadi told The Himalayan Times, adding, “We know it is a wastage of treated water, but we had no other option.”

Duwadi said Melamchi was currently treating more than 30 million litres of water from its Sundarijal-based water treatment plant. So far, more than 90 million litres of water has already been dumped into the Bagmati River.

Due to defects in the pipeline, MWSDB had halted test operation of the treatment plant in September. Along with the test operation of the treatment plant, the board had also begun supplying treated water through BDS pipelines on September 17.

DED Duwadi said until the water level remains high, the treatment plant would continue to treat 25 million litres daily. Water is being brought through 500-metre pipeline from the Bagmati River for test operation of the plant.

Project Implementation Directorate admitted that pipeline repair work was delayed to Dashain holidays . “We know the difficulties the project is facing due to delay in pipeline repair work, but we couldn’t complete the task earlier,” Project Director at PID Tiresh Prasad Khatri said, adding, “Pipeline repair will resume from Sunday after workers return to work.”

The Melamchi water treatment plant has the capacity of treating 85 million litres of water per day.

A joint venture of VA Tech Wabag Limited and Indian firm Pratibha Industries Limited had won the Rs 4.2 billion contract to construct the water treatment plant in 2014.