After 11 days of disruption, local people in the headworks area of the Melamchi Water Supply Project in Sindhupalchok have finally agreed to resume water supply to the Kathmandu Valley—but only under a set of conditions that reflect long-standing demands.

At a late-night meeting on Tuesday held at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, it was agreed to channel water from the Melamchi river into the tunnel system, and the office of the Melamchi Water Supply Development Board in Panipokhari, Kathmandu, which had been padlocked, will now be reopened. As per the agreement, the source of Melamchi water supply has been opened from Wednesday.

The affected locals stipulated several conditions including the release and utilisation of the Social Upliftment Programme (SUP) budget that had been paused since the fiscal year of 2022-23, infrastructural repairs and flood-landslide mitigation within the headworks region; and prioritising flood-affected communities in employment opportunities linked to the Melamchi Water Supply Project.

As per the agreement, a committee led by Sindhupalchok’s chief district officer, including flood-affected representatives and technical staff, will assess the damage caused to houses, land, schools, colleges, canals and bridges by the 2021 floods and landslides and provide relief and compensation within three months.

For the first time, flood-affected families and relatives of the deceased in Melamchi will be given priority for employment at the Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited and the Melamchi Water Supply Project.

“The locals have closed the source demanding implementation of the agreement reached last year,” said Jagarnath Das, executive director of the Melamchi Water Supply Development Board. According to him, water from Helambu will reach the Sundarijal processing centre through the 26-kilometre tunnel by Wednesday evening. He said the management of the supply would begin the same night. Das added that the planned protests were withdrawn after the Ministry of Water Supply agreed to fulfil most of the locals’ demands during the negotiations.

The Ministry of Finance had withheld the budget allocation after the amendment of a formation order regarding SUP and budget mobilisation under it in the project-affected areas through local governments. Local stakeholders’ committees had been demanding direct control over the use of the SUP funds. Under the new agreement, however, the existing provision will be revised to establish a mechanism that allows the budget to be spent with the consent and coordination of the respective local governments.

The SUP has been operating across 53 wards of seven local units in the project-affected areas of Sindhupalchok and Kavrepalanchok districts. However, the allocated funds have not been released for the past three fiscal years. Helambu Rural Municipality has maintained that the funds should be channelled through the elected local government, while other municipalities have questioned the legitimacy, transparency, and functioning of the stakeholders’ committees.

Bishnu Khadka, a local resident attending the Tuesday’s talks, stated that the discussion produced a commitment to launch a tender immediately for black-topping the Melamchi-Ambathan-MelamchiGhyang road section, with an allocation of Rs25 million for the current fiscal year and a multi-year package of Rs100 million for the corridor’s development. Another clause of the agreement mandates modification of the formation order governing the SUP to permit local-level implementation under direct community oversight.

In the presence of Physical Infrastructure Minister Kulman Ghising, the signing parties also resolved that the upcoming fiscal year’s budget will include the “Melamchi–Helambu Integrated Corridor Development Programme” and prioritise recovery from the devastating floods and landslides in 2021. Locals pressed the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers to monitor implementation via a high-level coordination committee.

In 2021 the floods and landslides ripped through Melamchi’s headworks region, destroying homes, roads and infrastructure. Local residents have repeatedly complained that the government and project ignored their losses and delayed rehabilitation. The project itself remains a core supply line for the Kathmandu Valley, originally designed to deliver around 170 million litres of water per day.

The fresh problem arose when local struggle committees diverted the pipeline water back into the river and locked the Kathmandu office of the water supply project, protesting non-implementation of the agreement reached last year.