April 20 : The Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) is making preparations to send water from the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) to households in the Kathmandu Valley from Sunday.

“If things go as planned and projected, we will be able to supply water to our consumers in the next five days,” said Prakash Kumar Rai, Deputy Manager of KUKL.

Meanwhile, the work to clean the debris deposited by the floods and landslide upstream of the Melamchi River in Sindhupalchowk on July 15 last year is ongoing.

Headworks and a part of the tunnel of the national pride project was damaged in the disaster caused by torrential rain. The structures were buried about 15 meters down in the debris.

The work to restore the project had begun by the end of January this year. “About 75 percent debris is removed from the site and top of headworks is visible now. The site would be cleared and assessment would be conducted before the coming monsoon,” said Paudyal. When the floods hit the headworks, the project was nearing completion of the construction of civil works of the headworks and only a small amount of hydro-mechanical and electrical work was remaining.

Earlier, on 2 April 2021, President Bidya Devi Bhandari inaugurated the distribution of Melamchi water by letting a tap flow at the Bhrikutimandap, Kathmandu.

The project was conceptualized about five decades ago and construction was started about two decades ago. It witnessed multiple deadline extensions and cost overruns, which have almost doubled by now. In the first phase, the project is supposed to bring about 170 million liters of water a day to Kathmandu households.

In the second phase, 340 million liters of water from the Yangri and Larke rivers would be added to the system.