Minister for Physical Planning and Works Hisila Yami Sunday said though the management of Nepal’s water supply system has to be modernized, but it is necessary to maintain the transparency in the contract between government and Seven Trent.
Addressing an interaction in the ministry, she said the decision was made in haste when the Maoists were yet to join the government.
She said the government did not have the mandate to take decisions on major issues like that, adding that “a strong monitoring mechanism is essential to let any party take over the water management’s responsibility.”
On the development of the Melamchi water project, she said the work is so slow that only 16 per cent of it has been completed in the lat six years.
Suman Sharma, the executive director of Melamchi water supply project, said the project has spent Rs 3.6 billion till date and a major work of building a 27-km tunnel and changing the pipeline network in the valley is yet to be carried out.
PS Joshi, the vice-president of the NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation (NGOFUWS), said the government should think once again before the contract with the Severn Trent is finalised as, according to him, the company has a bad international record.
“It was penalised in England, sent back from Guyana, Trinidad, and their performance in other countries was also unsatisfactory,” he said.
He demanded the government study the company’s documents carefully and make them public before taking a decision.
Seven Trent is a controversial foreign company which has been given license to look after the management of water supply in Kathmandu valley.
In March 2006, Severn Trent was forced to repay £40 million to 3.5 million of its UK customers after water regulatory body found that the company had provided data that were either deliberately miscalculated or poorly supported, resulting in inflated water bills.
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