The meeting of the Joint Review mission of the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) concluded in Kathmandu today.

The meeting participated by representatives of all donor agencies of the project reviewed the work progress of the project and discussed the schedule, working environment, safety, security and funding gap of the project after Norway, one of the major donors of the project decided to pullout its assistance worth USD 28 million.

Norway pulled-out its assistance following the controversial verdict of the Royal Commission for the Corruption Control (RCCC) to detain former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and the then Minister for Physical Planning and Works Prakash Man Singh citing irregularities in the project deal.

According to one of the participants of the meeting, Norway, which had also participated in the meeting even after its decision to pullout the assistance refused to continue its assistance despite requests from the Nepalese authorities citing political situation of the country.

“Other donors except Norway are positive so the decision of Norway may not have grave impact in the project,” Salil Devkota, Environmental Engineer and deputy team leader of the meeting told Nepalnews.

According to Devkota, Nepalese authorities requested the donor agencies to continue their assistance, as the work progress was good. However the donor agencies did not commit to fulfill the resource crunch.

A major part of the project is the construction of a 26.5 km long tunnel to bring water from the Melamchi River, which will start from December 2006 as the construction of access road is in the final stage,” added Devkota.

The representatives of the donor agencies also held talks with the representatives of National Planning Commission, Ministry for Physical Planning and Works, Ministry of Finance and board members of MWSP in course of the meeting about the progress of the project and future strategies.

The MWSP is an inter basin water supply project which supplies water from snow fed Melamchi river in Sindupalchowk district to the Kathmandu valley. The Project is designed to solve the chronic water supply shortage in the Kathmandu valley with the diversion of 170 million liters a day water from the Melamchi River through a 26-km long tunnel in its first phase.

It is the largest drinking water project in the history of the country. With the objective of supplying adequate drinking water to the residents of capital valley, the Melamchi project has been in the offing for the last one-decade.

Various donors had committed to finance the USD 464 million dollars Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Norwegian Agency for International Development (NORAD), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Nordic Development Fund (NDF) and Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).