Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Prem Bahadur Singh has stated that water would be brought to Kathmandu Valley after finishing the remaining task of the tunnel of the Melemchi Project.

According to Singh, Kathmandu folks can use the drinking water from the Melemchi River within one and half years from now.

The scheduled date of water supply in the Kathmandu Valley from the Melemchi River has been postponed many times by announcing the new date of supply. Hopefully the latest schedule of November, 2017 will not be further postponed.

Singh would be remembered and praised if the latest schedule is respected whether he continues his ministerial job till then or not. I have heard that the government is having a very difficult problem of the failure to spend the budget allocated for the projects that were envisaged in 1990s shortly after the restoration of democracy.

I would also advise Singh to present a concept paper in an international conference of experts on bio-technology, town planning, cultural heritage preservation and public health engineering that might help us for the full conservationof the rain-water in Kathmandu by stopping the pollution of the rivers with sewage and by building reservoirs in and around the Kathmandu Valley.

Rain water harvesting surrounding the Valley’s hills will not only help supply much needed drinking water for the population of the Valley but also preserve environment and keep our rivers clean.

Water from the Melamchi Project will not be sufficient to meet the growing demand of drinking water in the Valley where population is growing every year.

We also need to find an option to the multi-million dollar project that has been delayed by years due to lack of efficiency on the part of the government.

R. Manandhar, Kathmandu

Green cities

Your editorial “Pollution concerns” (THT, May 23, Page 8) is a wonderful piece which shows that in the name of development urbanization and industrialization are taking place hastily is a problem than a solution for human misery.

It echoes the grave concern of each and every urban areas in South Asia. Unplanned and haphazard urbanisation is the root cause for all the pollution related problems.

The green building movement is an attempt to minimize and eliminate negative impacts and maximize environmental, economic and community/human benefits.

Constructing green buildings effectively reduce air pollution through reduced energy use, the use of appropriate refrigerants, and the use of materials with low off-gassing and other steps.

The reduction in use of fossil fuels at building sites also results in lower air pollution contributions at them, while reduction in electricity use results in lower air pollution associated with power plants.

Vinod C. Dixit, Ahmedabad