Kathmandu, May 11:

Minister for Physical Planning and Works Hisila Yami today said the government will rather find a solution than let the water distribution system be handled by a third party.

“We will not allow any party to take care of our water distribution system,” she said, addressing a programme organised by the Media Group Nepal here.

She said the government is now revising the decision of previous governments to let the Severn Tern Water International (ST) — which was the only bidder then — manage the water distribution system in the Kathmandu Valley. The Asian Development Bank, the main lender in the Melamchi water project, is said to have been piling pressure on the government to accept the proposal of the ST, which has a bad working history.

Yami also said that the seven cantonments where the Maoist fighters have been putting up could be developed into an urban centre in the future.

Dr Narayan Khadka of the Nepali Congress-Democratic stressed the need to go for a federal system.

Kishore Thapa, the director general of the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction, said that as the government is allocating more budget for rural development, difficulties have surfaced in solving problems in the cities.