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Melamchi Water Elusive Still
Melamchi Water Elusive Still
KTM Metro Reporter
December 18, 2018
Kathmandu: Folks in the Nepal Valley facing the heavy short supply of drinking water had great expectation that the new government elected in 2017 would surely supply the water from the Melamchi River located northwest of Kathmandu by the last Dashain festival. The water minister proudly announced that the water from the Melamchi River would flow to the Nepal Valley for the greatest Nepalese festival called Dashain. However, the target had missed. For many, it was not surprising because such promises made had not been kept a number of times in the past. Probably, folks would never again believe what the minister not to mention prime minister or the project chief or the government spokesperson would say because none of them was held accountable for what s/he said.
After the demise of the king’s despotic system called panchayat in 1990, the first interim Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai said half jokingly that he would bring the water from the Melamchi River to Kathmandu and would wash down the streets. At that time, hardly a few folks knew where Melamchi River was and how the water would flow to Kathmandu. So, Prime Minister Bhattarai was a comedian and he must have said so to make folks laugh. Surely, they did laugh at what Bhattarai said at that time.
Since then it has been almost 30 years folks have been talking about the Melamchi River and its water coming to Kathmandu. Some media had even reported that as if the water might be flowing to Kathmandu next month or so when nothing had been done yet. Thus, Melamchi had received a lot of publicity because it was to supply water to folks in Kathmandu where folks needed to collect water in buckets from the tanker or buy very expensive and unhygienic water from the private suppliers.
Thanks to the irresponsible nature of every government in the past and even today, nothing happens on time or as scheduled. So, the Melamchi Water has not reached Kathmandu so far is the vivid example of the highest possible irresponsibility of the concerned minister and of course the government as a whole, as none of the minister including the prime minister is accountable to what s/he has said or did. So, the water did not flow to Kathmandu even though the current minister had said that it would.
Now, if we were to believe the news posted in the second page of “gorkhapatra” on December 18, 2018 then the water might not flow in Kathmandu even in the next Dashain festival because the news stated that eight officials of the Italian company working for the Melamchi Project were about to flee when the police arrested them at Thamel in Kathmandu. The news stated that they were about to take flight on the pretext of going for celebrating Christmas but really escaping from doing the remaining project work because of the deteriorating financial condition of their company.
Again the question is whether the current government would be able to complete the remaining work if the Italian company would really default on the contract on the Melamchi Project or it is only a drama played to delay the project, as it would probably bring premium to the concerned minister including the prime minister; that might be one of the reasons why they have not been held accountable for their actions.
