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Two Breakthroughs In Constructing Tunnels

Issue April 2019

Two Breakthroughs In Constructing Tunnels

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar


In the presence of prime minister, minister for energy, water resources and irrigation, and some other State chief ministers on April 16, 2019, Bheri-Babai Multipurpose Diversion Project (BBDMP) has made a breakthrough in constructing a 12.5km long tunnel to divert the water from the Bheri River to Babai River for irrigating 51,000 hectors of agricultural land and producing 47 MW hydroelectricity. It would make a huge economic impact on the nation, and bring the social and economic prosperity to the area. What Nepal would have been, have all the tens of if not hundreds of large projects been done on time? Precisely 1,032 projects have been sick and lingering, the news in “Gorkhapatra” stated on April 20, 2019.


Speaking to the anchor of the Radio Nepal morning program “antar-sambad” on April 18, 2019, the project chief said that the drilling of the tunnel had been done one year ahead, the tunnel boring machine is the America made and belonged to the Chinese contractor; it was the first of this kind done in Nepal; other projects could follow suit; many other things have to be done before taking the water to the Babai River from the Bheri River, and to produce 47 MW hydropower, and would take some time to take the water for irrigating 51,000 hectors of agricultural land as foreseen in the project, as many canals have to be done, too.


Anyway the tunnel is there to take the water. So, the project management and the ministry might not have any excuses to delay the remaining project work. Let us assume that the remaining work would be done smartly as has been done the boring of the tunnel, and would complete on schedule if not ahead of it breaking up the shameful record of the tendency of ever delaying all the development projects.


Now, let us see what benefits this project could bring. Imagine the project would complete on time, and water would flow through the tunnel to the 51,000 hectors of land if not tomorrow then at least in the five-year time or so. Then, this large chunk of the agricultural land would have water for irrigation throughout a year, and would have the sun almost for the same period of time except for the monsoon time when the sun hides behind clouds for some hours a day.


With the so much of water and sun what the farmers could do. They could produce three rice crops a year. The productivity of crops would increase with the easily available water. Farmers would not need to wait monsoon for rains to water their crops. They could plow their land any time in a year at their convenient and plant or transplant whatever crops they would like. The land would be three times more valuable than what had been without the irrigation. It is a huge economic gain to the farmers, as the land value would go up.


A large number of jobs would be created in the farms, and then in the farm-products processing, and finally selling and buying activities. Anybody could guess how many jobs would be created for the Nepalese youths. Thus, many Nepalis would have a chance to come out of the poverty because the lack of jobs has been the main culprit for the poverty. So, it might boost the prime minister’s mission for “Prosperous Nepal and Happy Nepali.” Probably, a certain number of youths would not need to seek the foreign employments. They could contribute to the national development rather than contributing to the development of foreign countries.


What the benefits the country would enjoy from the irrigation system. Assuming the farmers would plant high value fine rice crop three times a year and produce it in a large quantity then Nepal would not need to import the billions of rupees worth of rice from India every month to feed the growing population of the middle class Nepalis. It means Nepal would save billions of Indian rupees used for buying fine Indian rice. Nepal uses American dollars to buy the Indian currency, as Nepal has to buy several times more from India than what Nepal could sell to India. Thus, Nepal has been earning dollars for buying Indian currency and helping India to earn foreign currency selling fine rice to Nepal.


Nepal could use the foreign currency saved from stopping to buy the Indian fine rice, for buying raw materials, machinery, equipment and instruments required for the fast economic development. The foreign currency saved is as good as earned. Thus, it would directly help to improve the performances of other economic activities, which would contribute to the fast economic growth means the growth of the per capita income.


The nice and healthy rice the Nepalese farms would produce would boost the health of Nepalis, as Nepalis would not need to eat the fine but unhealthy imported rice, as the prime minister stated. Prime Minister Oli in one of the public speeches had cautioned against eating the fine rice imported from India rather eat the coarse Nepalese rice because India had been exporting the fine rice produced from the leftovers of the fire worship and then machine polishing it that caused to lose most of the micronutrients it possessed.


The next important contribution the irrigation system would make would be the improvement of the environment, which in turn would contribute to the healthy living for the folks in the command area directly and then in the entire country because the improvement of the environment would not be only the local but national and even international. Given the good and warm climatic condition prevailing in the command area of the Bheri-Babai irrigation project, once the irrigation water would reach there; it would contribute to the improvement of the environment. The land that had been left barren for the most of the time in a year would have nice green rice plants or any other plants of different crops almost throughout a year. In other words, the area would be greener and the environment would be conducive to the better health of the local folks.


The irrigation water is only one portion of the Bheri-Babai project; it has hydropower to generate from the water flowing from the Bheri River. The newly generated hydropower would help to reduce the short supply of energy, and it would reduce the need for importing energy from India. The unannounced power outage would also be reduced.


Energy is one of the main components for the socio-economic development. So, the added energy to the national grid would keep on the industries, businesses and households going without interruption means it would contribute to the fast economic development because interruption to the production, and to the running of business would be reduced, too.


The sale of energy would produce revenue to the project, which belonged to the State. So, this project would generate significant revenue to the State, and it would give a good return on investment. Thus, the power generation would give the direct financial benefit to the State, and indirect financial benefits such as the tax increases caused by the high productions of goods and services made possible by the uninterrupted power supply.


Probably, the project would provide farmers with free irrigation water. So, it might not produce direct revenue to the State. However, the indirect benefits the nation would reap, and the revenue indirectly flowing to the nation would be quite a large sum because of import substitution, creation of jobs, production of agricultural products round a year, and improvement of environment. However, if the State were to charge the farmers a nominal fee for using the irrigation water then it also could produce revenue directly. The State might be wise to charge a small amount to the farmers for the irrigation water because it would help the project to repair and maintain the canals and other things including the 12.5km long tunnel that carries the water from the Bheri River to the Babai River. Also farmers would use the water as much as they needed.


Now, let us see whether the credit should go to Prime Minister Oli or not for the completion of the tunnel one year ahead. It should because Prime Minister Oli had at least refrain from interfering in the project implementation even though it was implemented well before he became the prime minister because most of the prime ministers had practiced to delay if not cancel the projects the previous prime ministers had implemented, or fired the project chiefs for hiring the party cadres next inline to the vacant positions causing the tremendous loss to the nation.


More credit should be given to Prime Minister Oli if Bheri-Babai project were completed as scheduled, and it would provide farmers with the irrigation water, and the project also would produce hydropower, and would benefit the nation and the farmers directly and indirectly and then the entire population of Nepal.


Nepal had another breakthrough made in constructing a tunnel. That was in the Melamchi Drinking Water Project. Probably, two years ago, the breakthrough in the 27km long tunnel was made. Folks in Kathmandu anticipated that the water would surely flow soon. They did not mind the dirt and dust the digging of roads for laying the pipes to distribute the water from the Melamchi River had caused.


The Oli administration had assured the folks of the gift of supplying the water from the Melamchi River on the occasion of the most important festival called Dashain in October 2018. That did not happen. The target was missed. Then came the crashing news of the officials of the Italian contractors that had been working on the Melamchi Project had tried to flee in December 2018 stating they were going home for Christmas. The Oli administration arrested them and then released, and talked about confiscating the deposit money, then probably, nothing happened because no more official news from the concerned ministry about what had been happening in Melamchi was fed to the public.


Thereafter naturally, the Oli administration did not talk about the Melamchi water. The concerned minister and the secretary to the ministry had traded charges against each other, as the media reported. That did not served any purposes. Prime Minister Oli did not like to mention the Melamchi Project in his major speech to the parliament.


After four months since the Italian contractors quit the project, and the work on the Melamchi Project had been suspended, the news in “Artha Bazaar” supplement to “Gorkhapatra” released on April 18, 2019 stated that the Melamchi Drinking Water Development Board had not finalized the modality of how to complete the remaining work on the project; and the spokesman for the ministry: Shanker Prasad Subedi did not know what had been happening to the Melamchi Project.


Probably, the water from the Melamchi River to Kathmandu would not flow for some time to come, as the project work was suspended for an uncertain period. Obviously, the ministry and the project had not reached a common understanding on how to resolve the problems of completing the project.


What are the problems? Folks could guess only in absence of the official version of what had been happening in the Melamchi Project. The guesses had been the ministry folks and the project folks could not reached an agreement on sharing the commission that a new contracts would bring them; the private supply companies making billions of rupees selling the water of well below the hygienic standard required for the general use had lobbied the folks working on the Melamchi Project to delay the project as long as possible.


The most talkative prime minister did not open up his mouth to say anything about the Melamchi Project. He had once said that the cooking gas would be connected to every kitchen of Nepalese households, and Nepalis would be soon traveling by boats to India and beyond but he had not said anything about the Melamchi water when it would come or not. So, it could be a fishy business and folks in Kathmandu might be waiting for the Melamchi water forever.


What are the economic consequences of not completing the large project such as the Melamchi Project as scheduled?


First the cost overrun: the cost of the Melamchi Project had been more than doubled as it had taken a long time to complete. The Asian Development Bank is the creditor. So, Nepalis needed to pay the principal and the interest on the loan taken for the project even though the project had been stalled. The State needed to pay off the loan without completing the project. Consequently, it would cause a heavy financial burden on the State.


The beneficiaries had been denied the delivery of the water from the Melamchi River making a heavy financial burden on them. They had been buying the water from the private water companies at the cost unimaginable to any logical thinking folks. It had caused a huge financial loss to the folks in the Kathmandu Valley because of the delay in completing the Melamchi Project.


Surely, the private water companies had been reaping the harvest of the financial benefits selling probably the most unhygienic water to the customers in Kathmandu. The news in “Artha Bazaar” supplement to “Gorkhapatra” released on April 18, 2019 stated that the private tankers carrying the water to sell had discarded the stickers of various colors that stated the quality of water the Kathmandu Valley Drinking Water Distribution Board had distributed. The private companies had been supplying water for the last 30 years.


The economic severity for the water consumers had been immense, as they had to buy water at very high cost every week. Some folks had dug wells to pump up underground water. Others had made a deep boring to reach the underground water. The shallow wells and drill holes dried up quite fast as neighbors also started off doing the same.


The financial loss caused to the consumers had been the great gains to the private water companies and builders of wells, and for drillers of boreholes for pumping up underground water. Probably, these guys must be behind the scene to create the misunderstanding between the Melamchi Project officials and the ministry officials.


On the one hand the taxpayers’ money had been overused for constructing the Melamchi Project without any financial and economic gains to the taxpayers particularly the folks in the Kathmandu Valley, as the project was stalled probably indefinitely on the other hand the folks had to pay heavy prices for even the unhygienic water the private companies had been providing. Thus, the delay in completing the Melamchi Project had caused the double adverse impact on the beneficiaries, and the loss to the State, too because it could not generate any revenue.


Former Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai of the interim government in 1990 set up immediately after reinstating the multi-party democratic system killing the despotic Panchayat the then king Birendra led said that he would bring the water from the Melamchi River and wash the Kathmandu streets without realizing the enormity of the project, and the huge financial input it required. He used to joke as Oli does. So, folks thought that it was a good joke; however, it was not. Unfortunately, Former Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai could not live up to make his words come true.


Probably, the actual work was started in Melamchi in 2012. The project spent 10 years before actually launching the filed work. After digging probably two kilometers of the tunnel, the Chinese contractor left the project. Then, one contractor after another worked on the project and finally the Italian made a breakthrough the 27km long tunnel giving the hope of soon the water from the Melamchi River would be flowing through the tunnel to the Sundarijal processing plant in Kathmandu, and then to the houses.


Hundreds of kilometers of pipes were laid in Kathmandu for the flow of the water from the Melamchi River totally disrupting the roads causing dirt and dust everywhere. Even after so much of physical troubles to the folks in Kathmandu, the flow of water from the Melamchi River has been uncertain after the Italian contractor quit the project.


The Oli administration and Prime Minister Oli himself too had been very shy to give the truth about the delay in completing the Melamchi Project causing the folks to imagine the reasons. Certainly, the incomplete Melamchi Project would heavily damage the reputation of the Prime Minister Oli and his party. How much damage had been done would be visible only after the next general election to be held after four years.


April 20, 2019

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