KATHMANDU: The Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s preparation to hand over the waste management of Kathmandu Valley to Nepwaste Private Limited has reached the final stage.
Mahelsh Kafle, chief of Public-Private Partnership Unit of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), said the draft of the agreement to be signed with Nepwaste has been already been submitted to the municipality. “Once the municipal executive approves it, the agreement process will be forwarded,” he added.
In February-March, Nepal Investment Board and Nepwaste Company signed the Project Development Agreement (PDA) of the Integrated Waste Management Project that includes waste management of 10 municipalities including KMC in Valley. Nep-waste is a joint venture of Nepal’s Organic Village and Finland’s Communication Pvt Ltd.
Nepwaste will manage waste produced in KMC, Dakshinkali, Chandragiri, Nagarjun, Tarakeshwor, Tokha, Budhalilkantha, Gokarneshwor, Kageshwori-Manahara and Shankarapur municipalities of Kathmandu district.
The KMC will coordinate with the private company to facilitate in acquiring land, facilities, grants, and rehabilitation as per the project agreement. “The private company will be provided transfer stations including of Teku,” said Kafle. “Moreover, 400 Ropanis of government-owned land at Bancharedanda will also be provided to the company.”
It is expected that the garbage problems of Kathmandu will be resolved after the waste management contract is handed over to the private company. Nepwaste will collect municipal garbage, special garbage, and street garbage. It will develop landfill site and manage waste by properly disposing the risky and hospital wastes, according to KMC.
“After the final agreement, Nepwaste will collect waste from every house with a monthly charge of Rs 219,” said Kafle. “The company will manage waste for 20 years and hand over the management to the government. The company will also pay royalties to the government for 20 years,” he said.
After nine years of government attempt to hand over waste management of Kathmandu to private sector, the process to implement Integrated Waste Management Project has reached the final stage.
The Integrated Waste Management Project began nine years ago by calling a tender process by the ministry and Waste Management and resource Mobilization Center. After a year, the tender was awarded to Hydro-air Tectonics and Kasaturi Trade Link based on top ranking. However, the contract with the first bidder was cancelled the following year after field verification and another agreement was signed with rank-2 bidder. The issue led to the filing of a case at the Supreme Court. Later, SC vacated the stay order issued earlier.
Nepal Investment Board continued the field verification six years ago and demanded budget with the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance approved the field visit budget five years ago.
Similarly, the field verification report was submitted four years ago. After Investment Board evaluated and approved the DPR, it gave a go-ahead to the project. The draft of DPR was prepared by Nepwaste three years ago, which was approved two years ago. Then the PDA was prepared.
Kafle said that final PDA will be signed within the next 6-9 months and the project will begin.
At present, 70 private companies have been collecting wastes in Kathmandu Valley. About 800 metric tons of waste is produced daily in Kathmandu Valley, while KMC produces nearly 500 tons of waste every day, according to Environment Department of KMC. The department carried out a study in 2009 that indicated that eight percent of waste was plastic products.
However, Doko Recyclers informed that 34 percent of waste is plastic products in Kathmandu.
KMC presently disposes waste at Sisdole Landfill Site of Okharpauwa in Nuwakot district. The waste will be disposed at the landfill site one more year, said Hari Bahadur Kunwar, chief of the Environment Department, KMC.
About 15-16 tonnes of waste collected at Teku Transfer Station is disposed at Sisdole landfill site every day. More than 1,000 staffers including drivers, helpers, sweepers, supervisors, technical staff and other personnel have been employed for waste management in KMC.
