Kathmandu Valley Drinking Water Limited set up:

Fulfilling one of the major preconditions of the Melamchi Drinking Water Project, the government has set up Kathmandu Valley Drinking Water Limited in order to hand over the distribution and management of valley's drinking water to private sector.

The Limited is headed by Birendra Man Shakya, senior divisional engineer at Melamchi project. It has representatives from municipalities and chamber: Indra Man Singh Suwa ( Kathmandu metropolitan), Rudra Gautam (Lalitpur sub metropolitan), Suresh Basnet (Nepal Chamber of Commerce) and two independent engineers Dhruba Bahadur Shrestha and Kamalesh Kumar Agrawal. The Limited has the authorised capital of Rs 450 million.

The government will now need to quickly make a decision – within May 15 - on handing over the management of drinking water in the valley to a British company called Severn Trent, which has already been approved by the cabinet. nepalnews.com sd May 08 07