Although the Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB) has not announced any postponement of the current deadline, sources at MWSDB say completion of the project is next to impossible within the stipulated time. “No further progress has been made for the past four and a half months,” sources informed. “Only some office work is underway.” [break]
Villagers in Sindhupalchowk and Kavre districts have padlocked the main field office, preventing vehicles carrying constructing materials from entering the project site. Of late, MWSDB has given in to the local villagers´ demand to change the project name to Hyolmo-Sindhu project. However, their nine other demands remain unaddressed.
One of their latest demands is that MWSDB should recognize an additional 15 villages as part of the project-affected area. So far, MWSDB has identified 14 villages in Sindhupalchowk and five in Kavre as project-affected. MWSDB has witnessed a peculiar trend of frequent protests by local villagers. A new group of dissident villagers come up with their own demands once MWSDB pacifies some previously-agitating group.
However, Narendra Baral, deputy executive director at MWSDB, has maintained that there is no possibility of further delay at the project. “Valley denizens will certainly get to drink Melamchi water by 2013,” Baral told Republica. “We are still committed to completing the project no later than the given deadline, despite all sorts of disruptive protests.”
Baral assures that construction work at the project site has not been obstructed. But workers deployed at the site rubbish his assurance. “How can they continue with their work if the main entrance to the project site remains padlocked for such a long time?” one worker asked.
According to him, the Chinese contractor has gotten some of the workers to enter the site from the back after tearing apart some barbed wire. They, however, are not able to work as expeditiously as earlier without smooth supply of all the construction material.
It is not only agitation by local villagers that has marred progress at the much-hyped project. A separate agitation within the project has added to MWSDB´s owes. The Melamchi Water Supply Project Workers´ Union (MWSPW) has been carrying out protests since November 19 demanding reform of the project, without which it says successful completion of the project is impossible.
Resumption of construction work on the project is one of the union´s major demands. “We ask the authorities concerned to hold significant talks with agitating local villagers,” Hari Rimal, union secretary, says. “The authorities´ sheer indifference toward resuming the project work is pushing back people´s dreams about Melamchi.”
The donor-funded Melamchi project is expected to rid Valley denizens of their prolonged water scarcity. The project aims to supply drinking water from the Melamchi River to the Valley through a 26-kilometer tunnel. Adding to the likelihood of postponement of the deadline, construction of the tunnel also remains halted.
However, Baral rules out any link between local villagers´ agitations and discontinuity of the tunnel work. “The tunnel construction has been stopped mainly because of delay in the import of required equipment,” he said. “We will promptly resume work once all the equipment is imported.”
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