CHINESE FIRM GIVEN ONE-YEAR DEADLINE FROM OCTOBER 29 TO COMPLETE REMAINING WORKS

The government has awarded the contract to complete the remaining construction works of Melamchi Water Supply Project to a Chinese company called Sinohydro. The Chinese firm has been given a deadline of 12 months to complete the works.

As per the agreement, the one-year deadline will start from October 29 and contractor company must finish all the remaining works of the Melamchi project by October 28, 2020.

Tiresh Prasad Khatri, executive director of Melamchi Water Supply Development Board, said if the contractor is able to complete the project before the deadline then government will provide it a bonus of Rs 1.27 million per day for each day before the deadline. “However, if contractor is unable to complete the project within the deadline, the contractor will pay a fine that is similar to the bonus that the government has planned.”

The project awarded to Sinohydro is worth Rs 850.02 million.

Though almost 95 per cent of physical works of Melamchi Water Project has been completed, a few works related to headworks and tunnel finishing, diversion tunnel, lining of audit tunnel and finishing touches of the tunnel are left, as per Khatri.

However, agreement to complete headworks of the project is yet to be signed. “We will soon sign the contract for construction of headworks with Sinohydro,” said Khatri. “In fact, it has already won the tender for the work with a bid of Rs 900 million.”

He further said that the contractor will build infrastructure related to the water intake aspect of the project and also work on improving the access road. Furthermore, it will also be responsible for the design and construction of the coffer dam, repair of the camp site and installation of flushing systems in the project.

As per Khatri, the government has segregated 10 different packages of the project of which eight small contracts have been given to the existing local contractors and the remaining two to Sinohydro.

The project has urged Sinohydro to construct remaining works by utilising the existing machines and equipment. “We have assured the company to provide necessary security and other coordination to complete the project on time,” informed Khatri.

Earlier, as per a request from Sinohydro, project had mobilised Armed Police Force personnel at five different points to provide security at the project site.

The project has been stalled since the Italian contractor Cooperativa Muratori e Cementisti (CMC) di Ravenna quit Melamchi without any valid reason in December last year.