In 'What's in it for us?' (#158) Naresh Newar paints a dismal picture of the Melamchi Water Supply Project and ncorrectly implies that the residents of Melamchi valley have only to lose and nothing to gain. We believe that the project will help improve the lives of Melamchi residents and contribute to their sustainable development, apart from addressing the chronic water shortage in the Kathmandu Valley. Project-affected people will receive substantial benefits and have access to opportunities to improve their livelihoods. The project will give priority to locals from Melamchi in skills training and employment in the project construction works. The project cannot provide employment to a large number of local people. All employment opportunities will come through contractors hired to undertake construction. The project has targeted hiring 30 percent of the workers from project-affected areas for tunnel and related access road construction through these construction contracts, and has built this as a mandatory contractual condition for contractors.

We have a special Social Uplift Program (SUP) specifically to improve the socio-economic condition of residents in the 14 VDCs affected in the Melamchi Valley. The SUP pursues a holistic and participatory development approach, including buffer zone development, education, health, income generation and community development, and rural electrification. The local residents, community organisations, and/or have been consulted during the SUP design and will be an essential partner in program implementation.

The benefits are not simply short-term. A levy will be charged to water consumers of Kathmandu every month, which will be used for the sustainable development of the 14 project-affected VDCs. The water levy will ensure the transfer of financial resources back to Melamchi residents, in return for a portion of their water. The project has also duly considered riparian flow requirements for existing uses and will maintain minimum required flow in the Melamchi river at any time of the year. Details are available at www.melamchiwater.org

Most of the anticipated benefits will be realised only after the project enters full-scale implementation. The project has required a long planning period, which is not uncommon for a venture on this scale. Understandably, communities have not been able to differentiate the planning period from the implementation and this has lead to some resentment in the Melamchi valley. Security concerns in the past have also delayed the pace of implementation. Construction of access roads and the SUP program is now set to start after the monsoon. We will now have a systematic approach to handling community grievances, and hope it will help to build confidence. It is not true, as stated in the article, that the army has taken over construction of the roads in Melamchi Valley.

M S Shrestha,
Deputy Executive Director
Melamchi Water Supply Development Board