Melamchi Drinking Water Project information:

http://www.adb.org/Documents/Profiles/LOAN/31624013.ASP

Executing Agency:
Ministry of Physical Planning and Works
Contact Person : Mr. Poshan Nath Nepal, Special Secretary
Tel. No. : (977-1)228670
Fax. No. : (977-1)228420

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Deuba and his corrupt jail.

How about other corrupt Engineers?

Perhaps you can point us to some proof of corruption since RCCC hasn't.

Corrupt or not, people CANNOT be arrested and imprisoned by a King and his kuttas without a fair trial. Why not dissolve all the courts we have, the whole judiciary and form 5 more commissions like RCCC and arrest people without any proof?

Why can not proof of corruption in court or for justice?

Simple:

He or she works in government office and he or she earn monthly RS 7,000.

Yearly income RS 84,000.


His or Her monthly Average expenses (lowest cost):

(1) Electricity bill: Rs 500
(2) Gas or cooking fuel: Rs 250
(3) Drinking water bill: Rs 200
(4) Petrol for motorbike: Rs 900
(5) School expenses for 1 kid (Boarding): Rs 3000
(6) House Rent 1 flat: Rs 800

Approximately monthly expenses: Rs 5,650

Approximately monthly saving: Rs 1,350

Approximately yearly saving: Rs 16,200


------------------------ Result -------------------------------------

He or She lives in:

(1) Own 2 to 5 stories Building
(2) Hold at least 1 motor bike or 1 SUV
(3) Own 5 to 50 ropanee lands
(4) Save 7 Lakes Rupees to 1 Karod in personal bank account.


How it could be happen for many government officials of Nepal? Do you think this is possible by Magic?

This is open corruption. Is not it?

Corruption just infront of your eye in Nepal.

well, what is RCCC going to do about peter giri and other kg's kuttas? Deuba and co. were jailed just for saving RCCC's (that means kg's) face. And where in this world can you see the same institution arresting, filing the case, discussing and deciding, all by itself? It used to be happen only in medieval times in other countries and until rana regime in Nepal. It seems Nepal is being taken to 1000A.D. by kg.

To: son of Nepal,

I do not think so.

King is doing right for Nepal and Nepalese. He does not have much option, too.

Truly, there is no question. We have major problems with corrupt and criminals government officials and political leaders.

Without establish strong Law, Order, Rule and Regulation...., Nepal can not be change or developed like where Nepal suppose to be in 20th century. But who make Law, Rule, and Regulation? King found that same crooks.

So, First of all, King has to take care to top government officials - like prime-minister, minister, Member of Parliament, Lawyers and political leaders.

Therefore King is doing. It is necessary for him to save Nepal and Nepalese Democracy.

ADB seeks additional info on Melamchi verdict:

National News from KOL Report

KATHMANDU, Aug 11 - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) in a letter to the Ministry of Finance has asked it to provide detailed information on the July 26 verdict of Royal Commission for Corruption Control (RCCC) on a case regarding alleged financial irregularities in awarding the Melamchi adit access road construction contract.
The bank said the information would assist them in deciding their future course of action.

Michael Stevens, Director of the Integrity Division, Office of the Auditor General, ADB, Manila, also reminded the ministry that the bank?s investigation found no evidence of irregularities.

Stevens has sought to know how the royal anti-graft body based its decision on details that may be unknown to ADB.

The letter addressed to Bhanu Prasad Acharya, secretary at the ministry, says, ?Because RCCC has apparently reached the conclusion that there were some irregularities, we would like to know what additional information the RCCC may have that is currently unknown to ADB.?

The RCCC had rejected the ADB?s report during the hearing last month saying that the reports from ?third parties" would not be entertained as evidence.

ADB is the largest donor to the Melamchi project, with US$120 million in funding. The project is now facing acute shortage of funds following Norway?s pull out recently. (hb)

TO: YOUSTANDUP
well.....let me ask you a question and you make your own decission if KG is doing great.
Having Jagat Gauchan on ministrial poistion you think that is right? I hope you know who he is. If not ask someone who knows and make your own decission.

Peace

Very well said nice. That is exactly what it is.

दूधको दूध, पानीको पानी, दाँया-बायाँ भुत्राको कुरो गर्न प-यो ?

Regarding the motive of ADB, I am skeptical. Though the actions of RCCC might not be justified in the context of targeting only the D-Company (Deuba ), I concur with RCCC's handling of the so-called "ADB's clearance". WB, IMF, or ADB are there to maintain the elites' grip over poor fellas like Nepal and not to develop Nepal, I don't doubt about that. They ruined Africa (WB and IMF), so whatever ADB says about Nepal should also be taken with a grain of salt, मलाई त त्यस्तो लाग्छ है .

Lets not forget that it is the donor's (donor? shit- most of them are lenders) conditions that NEA has to hike the price of electricity every year and so on. Even for Melamchi, ADB's conditions imply that the management of distribution of water should latter be given to a "private" party... u know the motives, dont you? Once they monopolize, they can do whatever they like.

ADB नेपालीलाई धनी बनाउन हैन, बुङ्गा बनाउन छिरेको हो प्रभु।

If you then see me a wicked pessimist, hell no, here are better solutions.
1. Kulekhani diverts water from Bagmati river basin and Kulekhani project itself is a storage-type. A very good option would be to use the Kulekhani reservoir to feed water to Kathmandu (this can be an entire gravity flow) while finding alternatives to hydropower plant. this will be a lot cheaper than melamchi. I exactly forgot the name of the engineer but think it is "Indra Chaulagai" or sth like that in "khanepani bibhag" who has done a lot of research in this.

2. Set up a mid-size semi-regulating type of reservoir anywhere in the Trishuli (in Dhading district, sth like before Galchhi), produce hydro power with half or less of the discharge and use it to pump water to Thankot etc. in less than half the price of Melamchi and a lot more water. No "phoren" specialists needed, we only need investment, thats it. There is no serious issue of dependence of locals on water-use in that catchment of Trishuli but Melamchi will displace a lot of ppl and environmentally too, melamchi is not that friendly to the Trisuli option.

मेरो बिचार पेश गरेको मात्र है ।

Keep rolling...

King should focus on the maoist problem rigth now. The biggest problem of nepal at present is the Maoist.

Well, in other hand curruption has been in nepali govt. for eversince and it is not going to hand. Some are more smart in curruption than the other but everyone is crrupt and no one is more crrupt than king himself. Chor le sabailai chor nai khekcha bhaneko yahi ho!!

good ideas shree5. we need forum of ideas/solutions like these instead of these endless posting of what is wrong with nepal and who needs to be blamed. right about ADB -
it's yet to see if they have accomplished anything positive in Nepal yet -

Yes, Shree5 and neaupaneaj; we should start giving alternatives and our vision for problems. I completely agree that donor (or loaner) driven projects did very few to Nepal. We should start from small projects, whether in drinking water or electricity, gain some experience and dare bigger and so on.

हो भन्या,
यतै साझामा hulaki ले कता हो लेख्या थे,

"We should stop being Gurkhas anymore. We should be ourselves."

भनेर, साह्रै घत प-या थ्यो मलाई त।

Keep rolling...

Shree 5, i have been ur silent reader and u have been shearing excellent ideas. There are some issues where i have certain reservation over your thoughts about keeping monarchy for certain period and your vague idea about Maha yaaga which will eventually bring Amrit or some sort of logic which will eventually bring all the desh bhakti and saccha prajatantra badi from all the three quarters together (but how?) and make a new and united Nepal. Anyway, your ideas are excellent. As you mention every time u post.. Keep rolling, you too keep rolling, don't stop.

Nut

thx nut

my logic abt monarchy was that if there is an immediate "revolution" the consequences might be tht maoists will sweep over the power balance in the aftermath because of the sentiment of the masses; or these "hutihara" girija et al will apparently cling to the hot-seats thereby availing lots of playing field to the external powers like indians etc. And my reading was if we keep on this current situation for a while, there will be "horizontal cleansing" and a solid democratic pole led by the true democratic forces and civil society will prevail which will establish some good norms. For example, even Babu ram Bhattarai is daring, from such an iron-furnace, to hail the civil society and democratic forces, ppl like Gagan are voicing out, even students of UML are supporting movements led by the civil society. The changeover should happen under the leadership and vision of civil society for only the civil society has that moral prowess to balance the two armies, guarentee national interests and articulate a good constitution, if it goes to the hands of so-called "parties", we will again be doomed. My inspiration: not all the presidents and leaders of the USA have been visionary and benign, look at G W Bush, however, a single group led by George Washington was enough to establish a system that has ever remained intact after independence. In Nepal too, my opinion is that there should not be a changeover unless a rock-solid democratic system is guarenteed to prevail which can be done ONLY under the leadership of folks not bound to any party particular.

Regarding this Melamchi case, as an engineer, it never appealed to me. To me it is a "fool's cap". Bringing water to Kathmandu alone is not the solution, it is just equivalent to having a little shower of rain in Kathmandu. the distribution system is whole berserk. Further, only Kathmandu is not the solution, the whole Bagmati basin has been crapped up. Ppl living downstream in the Bagmati watershed in Terai region are facing the worst consequences of inept water management in Kathmandu and if we bring the water of Kulekhani (which is diverted from Bagmati watershed, a grave injustice to nature itself), we will be relinquishing the Bagmati basin again. Hydropower-wise, Kulekhani itself is not that a great achievement; with the current technology, economically more attractive alternatives are available at every major river. It has been PRIVATELY researched by an engineer in Khanepani Bibhag (I guess his name is indra chapagai, not sure though, he is a pretty young guy) and found a lot cheaper than Melamchi.

Or, building a regulating type of reservoir (that arrests the excess discharge during monsoon and can be used up in dry season) in Trisuli, producing a little bit of hydropower and pumping the water (that would have gone down during monsoon floods as it does now) all-year round to Kathmandu would provide a pretty BALANCED solution, तेस्तो भनेको...के गर्ने, देश नै जनता होइन, जन्तुको हातमा छ....



Anyway, lets keep rolling...

As i said earlier your ideas/thoughts are really impressive and are well articulated. When one makes hypothesis, he/she may have to question oneself of about possible/likely factors that are preventing hypothesis to sublime/transcendent into a fact (in other words, what are the forces that are preventing the Desh Bhakta and Saccha Loktantrabadi to form a decisive force and how long does it take to form such force if this is gone be materialized?). Similarly, what are the favorable factors that could potentially assist in the formation of such a force? Then only you will be able to generate such force. And I thing this gone take quite some time and for this you need to have a visionary leader. Civil society and professionals can not do such a gigantic task.

There might be several factors but I just want to point out a single factor for a time being. One thing your have completely (?) ignored is the fourth force-International community primarily India, US, China and Britain as well as EU, which has significant impact not only in internal dynamics of Nepali politics but also on stability of Nepal as a state. The way these countries are showing their maneuver in recent times apparently indicates their questionable intensions? I almost completely agree with the content of the Moriarty (not necessarily with the Bloomfield) but not with the person. Content is relevant but the person is not. As a Nepali, I see it as an unfortunate event where representative of a foreign country is admonishing us that we may become country less individuals! India seems to play double or rather triple role and EU has different thing to share with us. Well it is understandable that all the countries may not and can not come with a single agenda but they themselves seem to divided over what is good and how that good is accomplished in Nepal. Briefly, their divided stand (and may be ill intensions) may be a significant factor that is preventing the Maha Yaga to take place and Amrit to come out from the Nepali dharti.

Nut

thx nut and I totally agree with u.

I was kind of analyzing the past and present but wishing for the future while trying to learn politics of nepal which is a completely new subject to me.

anyways, keep rolling...

Shree 5, you turned out to be a student of engineering and i am happened to be a student of Basic Medical Sciences. Ironically, we converse about politics. Kasto contradiction hoina ta k garne. Nepal jasto hamipani testai bha hoola! Anyway, it was nice exchanging views with you.

Nut

Some technical facts:

1. Melamchi is a gravity flow scheme, that requires about 27 km of tunneling that links the source at Melamchi with Sundarijal in Kathmandu valley. I'd like to know from you how much of conveyance structure is needed to link Kulekhani with kathmandu.

2. "Set up a mid-size semi-regulating type of reservoir anywhere in the Trishuli...."
How will producing electricity and using that electricity to pump water be more efficient and economical than using the gravity conveyance?

3. "Kathmandu alone is not the solution, it is just equivalent to having a little shower of rain in Kathmandu"
Kathmandu valley has a population between 1 to 2 millions, and is bound to grow. How can we be unjust to this large population by letting the city grow but not provide the basic infrastructure?

4. "...the distribution system is whole berserk"
Significantly improving the distrubution system is part of the overall Melamchi Project.

5. "Ppl living downstream in the Bagmati watershed in Terai region are facing the worst consequences of inept water management in Kathmandu"
Less than 20 percent of the domestic water supply is actually "consumed". Rest flows back downstream as wastewater. I am not raising the issue of pollutants concentration here. But the mass flow does not significantly fluctuate temporally to affect the basin balance on a large scale.

(Dear Shri 5, please take these notes as a matter of technical discussion as all of us wise people do. I do not at all claim to know everything, but would like to learn. And I'd like to find out more of research done on such interesting water resources issue.)

You must realize that Rs 7000 of 1970 is not same as Rs 7000 of 2005. When you understand the time value of money, please revise your estimation.