Melamchi rescheduled for 2016 completion
KATHMANDU, OCT 09 -
The government on Monday made public its action plan for the Melamchi Water Supply Project under which it has been rescheduled to be completed by March 2016. The project was supposed to be finished by 2015, but a termination of the contract with the Chinese contractor has forced the government to revise the completion date.
When the contract was awarded, the project was slated to be completed by 2013 which was later revised to 2015 due to obstruction by locals.
The Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB), the project implementing agency, said that it was planning to resume the stalled task of tunnel construction following the contract termination with the Chinese company from the beginning of January 2013.
The board said that it would sign a contract with a new firm on Jan 7, 2013 to resume the task.
Following the contract termination with China Railway 15 Bureau Group, the government has begun exercises to call a new bid in an effort to continue tunnel construction work of the national pride project. On Sept 25, the government had announced terminating the contract with the company charging it of lack of seriousness and failing to meet the expectations while the Chinese contractor had already pulled out from the project.
The MWSDB said that it would call a fresh invitation for bids on Nov 9 whose closing date would be Jan 7, 2013.
“With the new process, we want to resume the task at the earliest,” said project Krishna Prasad Acharya, director general of the MWSDB, on Monday. According to him, this will further push back the project by two years and result in cost overruns.
MWSDB officials said that taking a lesson from the previous failure story, the new contractor will be chosen by giving high emphasis on quality and efficiency of the company rather than low bidding. “We will not look at the cost factor while selecting a contractor, but its efficiency and the quality it delivers,” said Acharya. The Chinese company was awarded the contract worth Rs 4.28 billion three years ago. He added that the contractor selection process this time would be rigorous. The MWSDB has planned to go through technical and financial details, experience and expertise, success cases, assets and properties, human resources and method statement of the applicants.
Meanwhile, the major financer for the project, the Asian Development Bank, has also pledged to select a quality contractor this time while committing additional funds for the project.
Acharya also said that though the project is planned to be completed by 2016, the board will try to supply water in Kathmandu by September 2015. “In the new bidding document, we will state that the contractor would be rewarded if it completes its task before deadline while the contractor will be penalized for any delay,” said Ghanashyam Bhattarai, deputy director general of the board.
Board officials also said tunnel construction work would begun from the point it had been halted. The Chinese company was awarded the tunnel construction project on condition that it would construct 700-800m monthly and start work from four points simultaneously. However, the company has dug only 6.5 km of tunnel while it was supposed to complete 20 km so far. “We can make some changes in the size and shape of the tunnel as per the recommendation of the new contractor,” said an official.
Following the government’s ending the bond with the Chinese company, the ADB has agreed in principle to provide another soft loan for the project if necessary. “We already have some portion of the loan amount from the ADB,” said Acharya who is also the project chief, “If the amount is not enough, we will ask the ADB for additional loans.”
Source: The Kathmandu Post
