Kathmandu: The High Powered Committee for Integrated Development of Bagmati Civilization has decided to use Rs 4 billion from the Asian Development Bank to preserve environmental and ecological diversity of the Bagmati River. The bank has agreed to provide the loan for water collection in three places at the source of the river in the northern part, environment preservation in the buffer zone, risk management from flood in the lower land, and urban development.

Three dams will be constructed in the upper wetland—Nagmati and Bagdwar—which will be developed as a recharge zone for the river. Water collected in the rainy season will be discharged in the river during the dry season at the rate of 500 liters per second (lps). According to Committee Chief Mahesh Bahadur Basnet, an ADB technical team from Manila has arrived for a detail study of the project. “The bank has reached the first phase of agreement with the Ministry of Finance,” he said. The three-year project scheduled to start next fiscal year envisions building an 18-metre dam to collect 700,000 cubic meters of water in the upper wetland which will be sufficient to discharge 24lps water in the Bagmati in the dry season. Similarly, a 50-metre dam will be constructed in the Nagmati area to collect 4 million cubic liters of water, from where 237lps will be let to flow for six months in the dry season.
As per the plan, around 6 million liters of water will be collected near Bagdwar, constructing a 60-metre high dam which will provide 200lps continuous supply in the Bagmati during the dry season. “We aim to supply 500lps water in the Bagmati in three years,” said Basnet. “There will be knee-deep freshwater in the Bagmati down to the Pashupati area even in the dry season.” According to Basnet, the project mainly aims to preserve wetland to increase recharge zone for the river. There will also be income generation support such as animal husbandry and agriculture to people in the buffer zone. There will be total embankment from Sundarijal to Gokarna while a number of parks will be developed in the 8 km area along the river.

Source: The Kathmandu Post, June 12, 2012