Myanmar’s parliament yesterday approved a loan of Euro 29.96 million from the Netherlands FMO and ING Bank to build a water treatment plant with the capacity of 7 million gallons per day (MGD) in Pyigyidagun Township, Mandalay Region.
A total of 14 MPs supported this loan plan in Union Parliament on June 5 in their deliberations and Deputy Minister of Union Planning and Finance Ministry Maung Maung Win provided an explanation.
MP Thaung Htay Lin from Patheingyi constituency asked a question about how the project planned to avoid drought and deal with waste water management in the summer season since the project would take water from the Dokhtawady River by accumulating water in dams and distributing water after it has been treated.
The Deputy Minister of Union Planning and Finance answered this question.
“Even in the lowest level in the summer season the rate of water flow in the river will be 81 million gallons. This project will take only 7 million gallons from this amount so that there will be no worry for flow in the river,” deputy minister explained.
Mandalay municipality and the municipal committee will jointly work for treatment of waste water and collection of garbage discarded by nearby villages and resorts built along the Dokhtawady River bank.
The project period will be two and half years from 2019 to 2021and during this period the infrastructure for the treatment plant will be built.
The previous government built a water distribution project by pumping water from the Ayeyarwady River with capacity of 4 MGD but it could only produce half, 2 MGD, because of design and technology flaws.
“We learned lesson from the previous project to avoid design and technology flaws this time. We make the design this time systematically. Netherlands based Royal Haskoning DHV made this project design by studying all data of the terrain at the project site, meteorology and hydrology data for past ten years, detailed annual records of high and low water flow in the river, seismic data, water quality of Dokhtawady River and conducting the need assessment of potable water for the people in the project area and nearby areas and then all of them are taken into account in the calculations for the project design,” deputy minister Maung Maung Win said.
Currently Mandalay municipal committee is distributing water to Aungmyethazan, Chanmyethazan, Mahaaungmye, Chanmyathazi, Amarapura Townships and a new satellite township Pyigyitagun receives potable water through a JICA project using underground water.
This project will distribute potable water to remaining 70% of Pyigyitagun Township using surface water.
Mandalay City Development Committee (municipal committee) reportedly plans to repay this loan by collecting tax and revenues from consumers by installing water meters in their distribution network.
