Nepal

The Valley water authority resumed water supply from Melamchi project in Kathmandu Valley on Friday, nearly six months after the supply was disrupted in the wake of devastating flood in the Melamchi area. 

Preparations for water distribution started in earnest on December 7, with the Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) filling 10 reservoirs across Kathmandu. 

Before that, the project engineers had flushed the Melamchi tunnel of the any remaining debris and discharged the water into the Bagmati River.
 
"The tunnel had been shut since June, a year after a massive mudslide in the Melamchi area damaged the tunnel structure at its source at Ambathan. Silt and debris in the tunnel were flushed out with fresh water which was later released into the Bagmati River," said Ram Chandra Poudel, an engineer at the Melamchi Water Supply Project. 

According to him, engineers tested the tunnel by gradually increasing the volume of water as it had been closed for a long period. 

Project spokesperson Rajendra Pant said that 170 million litres of water from the Melamchi River would be diverted into the 26.5km tunnel daily from Friday.

The project had first started distributing the Melamchi water in Kathmandu on March 28 last year. However, the supply was disrupted following major floods and landslides in Sindhupalchowk on June 15.

The $800 million Melamchi water supply project is the nation’s largest water supply project hailed to remove the water scarcity of Kathmandu valley – with a population of nearly five million.

The headworks of the project was completely swept away and the tunnel was buried under dozens of feet-high pebbles, sand and mud-laden debris. 

As the permanent fix to the project remains far-fetched, the water supply from Melamchi will be limited to the dry season at the moment to avoid any damage to the tunnel – the most expensive piece of infrastructure of the Melamchi project. 

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