Climate

Melamchi project was planned during King Mahendra's reign in the 1960s - reportedly.

In the run-up to the 1999 general election, critics laughed at him when Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, pledged to bring Melamchi water to Kathmandu valley and even use it to wash the capital's streets. Twenty-three years later, Bhattarai's life-size statue was unveiled on the Melamchi water treatment plant outside Kathmandu.

Back in 1999, Bhattarai also pledged – unclear whether jokingly or otherwise – to wash the streets of Birgunj, a bustling town in southern Nepal. But long before the Melamchi Water Supply Project was completed, the former prime minister and Nepali Congress leader, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, passed away on March 4, 2011, at the age of 86.

And Kathmandu residents waited for another ten years to see Melamchi water finally flowing down their taps. Water from the snow-fed Melamchi river, diverted to Kathmandu valley through a 26.5km tunnel, first reached the taps of 100,000 households on March 28, 2021. 

The celebration was short-lived, though. Less than three months later, on June 15, 2021, a devastating flood and mudslide in the Melamchi's headwaters high up in the Bhremthang area of the Helambu region swept away the Project's headworks. Luckily, the tunnel escaped significant damage. Yet the extreme early monsoon flood left a trail of destruction across the Melamchi valley. 

The disaster effectively turned the Melamchi Project into a seasonal one, enabling engineers to divert 170 million litres of Melamchi water daily, but only during the dry season from November to May. It also raised a big question mark on the future of the Project, which has a price tag of $800 million with plans to divert water from the Yangri and the Larke rivers east of the Melamchi basin.

After water from the two rivers is added, the water supply into the valley would go up three-fold.

Be that as it may, such climate challenges confronting Melamchi have not deterred Water Supply Minister Umakant Chaudhary from celebrating the successful completion of the first phase of the Melamchi Project.

On Sunday, he roped in Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to unveil the statue of the late Bhattarai at the Melamchi water treatment plant at Sundarijal. 

Coincidentally, both Deuba and Chaudhary are protégés of late Nepali Congress leader Bhattarai. Minister Chaudhary’s move follows rechannelling of Melamchi water into Kathmandu valley only a week ago after the Project remained shut with its tunnel closed amid fears of disastrous flood in the rainy season. 

And when that happened, Melamchi water leaked and spilled over several busy streets in the capital. The biggest spillover was seen at the Lainchaur-Lazimpat junction, where engineers had to spend several days plugging the holes. Seeing the streets flooded, several social media users commented, “how KP Bhattarai’s plans have now finally seen the light of day”.

Also Read: Efforts on to redivert Melamchi water

Also Read: Melamchi shutdown compels engineers to find alternatives