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Prachanda’s Aspirations
Prachanda’s Aspirations
KTM Metro Reporter
Kathmandu, September 24, 2016
Inspecting Melamchi Drinking Water Project
Prime Minster Prachanda rushed to the Melamchi project site with his motorcade clearing the traffic on the way on September 23, 2016. Wearing a protective helmet, he talked to the project Chief Ghanashyam Bhattarai, other officials working at the project, and interact with the local people. Prachanda clearly told them that he would use the carrot and stick to make the officials and the labors work there. He said that he personally would monitor the progress of the work in the project area.
The Melamchi Drinking Water Project is the nationally prestigious project but the Kathmanduites have already lost the hope of getting water from this project, as the talks of the water coming from the Melamchi has never stopped in the media, and in the household talks ever since the then Interim Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai bluntly told the reporters that he would bring water from the Melamchi River in the Sindhupalchoki District and even wash the streets of Kathmandu in 1990. Since then many political leaders have become prime ministers but the water from the Melamchi did not flow to Kathmandu causing tremendous shortage of water. The water supply went down from the every day supply to the alternative day, then every two days, and so on currently even in the wet season, once a week.
Speaking to the anchor of the Radio Nepal morning program called ‘antar-sambad’ on September 24, 2016, the project Chief Ghanashyam Bhattarai said that the water would flow from the Melamchi River to Kathmandu in the next Dashain after this upcoming Dashain means after a year. The tunnel has been almost completed; only 6.5 km is left to do. The contractor has been constructing one kilometer a month. The last 500 meters would take a considerable time. He also has said that the treatment pond at Sundarijal in Kathmandu has been almost completed; the pipeline has been laid to bring the water from the mouth of the tunnel to the pond. Nine ponds at different areas have been done in the Kathmandu Valley for distribution.
Project Chief Bhattarai has said that even though the talks about the Melamchi Project have been going on for a long time, the actual work on the project has started only in 2008. In between then and now, the project has many problems to deal with including the contractors. Ultimately, the project is going to complete in a year, and the 3.5 million population of the Kathmandu Valley would receive 170 million liters of water a day. It might not entirely resolve the problem of water supply but it would considerably ease the water supply in the Kathmandu Valley, the project chief has said.
The project chief has appreciated the cooperation of the locals. He has said that the locals have come forward with different constructive suggestions.
INGOs And NGOs
Speaking at an event the Social Welfare Council (SWC) held in Kathmandu on September 22, 2016, Prime Minster Prachanda urged the International Non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and national Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to work with the gusto so that people would not have any complaints. He has hinted at the INGOs and NGOs have not been working properly rather they have wasted money holding seminars at the five-star hotels in Kathmandu.
Obviously, the prime ministerial advisors have not properly briefed the prime minister on the activities of the INGOs and NGOs otherwise Prime minister Prachanda would probably not speak so harshly or Prachanda must have been swept away by the highly unreliable local private media that feed the readers nothing but rubbish.
The prime minister needs to understand that the INGOs and NGOs have done tremendous work on health sector causing the less mortality of children and mothers at birth, higher use of family planning device, and making available primary health care in the rural areas. They have been instrumental in educating the rural and even urban folks through the non-formal education, in providing micro-credits, skill training, in propagating renewal energy, and in the agricultural extension services.
Today, the government boasts about achieving the millennium goals of the child and mother survival rates, and reducing the population growth, and other things. However, the government has forgotten to appreciate the INGOs and NGOs for what they have done rather the prime minister has reached the point of warning them of the public complaints. The government needs to take strong actions if any INGOs or NGOs have done some things wrong rather than heaping up the public complaints on all the INGOs and NGOs.
Even during the quakes that devastated the central Nepal in 2015, if the INGOs and NGOs were not there to provide the immediate relief supplies, many quake victims would not have a chance of survival. However, the government officials have been smartly talking doing nothing. Prime Minster Sushil Koirala provided the quake victims with NPR 15,000 for the immediate relief. Since, then neither Prime Minster KP Oli nor Prime Minster Prachanda has been able to provide even meager NPR 50,000 for building houses to the quake victims except for talking and talking and doing the paper works. Better the prime minister stop talking rather provide the quake victims with whatever the amount the government could quietly so that they might be able to shift from their makeshift shelter to houses.
