M A N D A L AY U R B A N S E R V I C E S I M P R O V E M E N T P R O J E C T

T O W A R D A G R E E N M A N D A L A Y

Emerging from decades of isolation, Myanmar is experiencing rapid economic growth. Economic sanctions imposed by many countries in the late 1980s clearly hampered development. In Mandalay, the country’s second largest city, chronic underinvestment has left urban services such as water supply, drainage, and sanitation in a poor state.

This is all about to change as the Mandalay City Government prepares to embark on its first major urban investment program in 25 years. The Mandalay Urban Services Improvement Project will substantially improve the environment and public health conditions toward the vision of creating a clean and prosperous green city by 2040. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the French Agency for Development (AFD) will provide financing for the project.

Geographically, Mandalay sits in the middle of a large plain bordered in the west by the Ayeyarwady River, the largest river in Myanmar. Mandalay is the last royal capital and center of Myanmar culture and Buddhism. The city took its name from Mandalay Hill, the tranquil green heart of the city known for its many pagodas and monasteries.

Below the hill, however, the city is shrouded in construction dust of a development boom. The current population of 1.25 million is expected to double in the next 25 years.

The existing water supply system of Mandalay was built with an ADB loan in the 1990s before international economic sanctions were imposed. The main pumping

station still functions but the current system covers only part of the city core, providing an intermittent, untreated water supply to about half of the city’s residents.

Says U Tun Kyi, a leading member of the Mandalay City Development Committee:

“The City of Mandalay and ADB share a similar concept of green cities. ADB is providing technical assistance to prepare our project. First we will upgrade the water supply system. In the future we will expand coverage to the unserved areas.” 1

The project will rehabilitate the existing water supply system, increase water production, and reduce nonrevenue water (NRW), which now accounts for about 50% of the water supply. City water and sanitation department staff are already undergoing training on NRW management techniques by experts from VEI, a Dutch water company, and the project preparation team.

Social surveys by the project preparation team indicate that there is a high demand for new water connections, especially in the poor peri-urban communities surrounding the city core, due to the lack of other suitable water sources.

Wastewater treatment is another major project component. The lakes and drainage canals that crisscross

1 ADB TA-8472 MYA; project preparation consultants: PM Group/Safege

The City of Mandalay has grown around the moat of the old royal palace

the city, like Thingaza Creek, are severely polluted by domestic and industrial waste and choked with garbage. The project preparation team found high levels of biological oxygen demand, or BOD, and trace amounts of toxic metals in the canal network. There is no wastewater treatment other than household septic tanks, which often leak and pollute water bodies.

According to Gary Moys, the project preparation team leader:

“There is a clear relationship between poor environmental services and public health. Mandalay is setting itself to become a green city, but a fundamental aspect of that is to have good environmental services that will attract not only tourism but also will attract industry and others to the city of Mandalay.”

The city’s first wastewater treatment facility will be built to clean up Thingaza Creek. This will have a beneficial impact on the health and quality of life of the people living near the canal.

A significant source of pollution of the canals is untreated wastewater from factories in the industrial zone in the southern part of the city. The government has contracted a private company to build and operate a wastewater treatment facility for industrial effluent.

Says U Tun Kyi:

“The city has to install a sewerage system. Wastewater must be treated before it is discharged. Drainage is also a problem. We need to establish an effective urban drainage system.”

The intricate canal system serves as the drainage network for storm water during the rainy season. The project team modeled existing and future hydrological conditions, including the impact of climate change, to assess different options to improve drainage. The project will dredge canals and drains, remove hydraulic bottlenecks, and implement nonstructural measures to manage the drainage network. Measures to improve solid waste management will also be given attention, according to Moys:

“The city is actually doing quite a good job with regard to solid waste collection and disposal, but there are key things that need to be improved to expand the service and help reduce the amount of solid waste that finds its way into the drains.”

Campaigns to create environmental awareness among city residents will be a key measure to reduce the amount of trash dumped into water bodies. The project cannot deliver sustainable improvements to the urban environment

Selling vegetables by the polluted Thingaza Creek, which will be cleaned up by the project

without community participation. Residents have a crucial role to play in creating a green Mandalay.

In a later phase of the project, a sanitary landfill will be constructed to replace the environmentally hazardous northern and southern dumpsites, where leachate from trash pollutes the groundwater and waste pickers toil in unsafe, unhealthy conditions.

An important consideration for both the government and ADB is the financial sustainability of the project, according to Eri Honda, Principal Urban Specialist with ADB’s Southeast Asia Department:

“The City of Mandalay will have to raise sufficient revenue to cover operation and maintenance costs, as well as part of the capital cost of the new infrastructure. The can be achieved by gradually increasing the tariff for water supply, wastewater treatment, and garbage collection. The community surveys reveal that people are willing to pay for improved urban services. Financial sustainability is crucial to the development of a green Mandalay that will benefit all city residents.”

The Mandalay Urban Services Improvement Project has been approved by the Mandalay City Development Committee, which will implement the project. It is now going through the approval process by regional and national government.

MANDALAY URBAN SERVICES IMPROVEMENT PROJECTMain Outputs:• Rehabilitation and extension of water supply system• Nonrevenue water reduction • Wastewater collection and treatment phase 1• Sludge treatment/disposal and gas to energy • Septage management• Nonstructural storm water management• Dredging drainage canals and increasing flow • Improved urban planning, integrating climate

change resilience• Utility capacity building and corporatization• Public awareness raising

Financing: • $130 million project • $60 million loan from ADB and €40 million from AFD • Balance funded by government and grants

CONTACTS

Eri Hondaehonda@adb.org

Denis Desille desilled@afd.fr

Khin May Htay khinmayhtay62@gmail.com

Mandalay’s water service now provides an intermittent supply to about half the city residents

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)© 2015 ADB. The CC license does not apply to non-ADB copyright materials in this publication. Publication Stock No. ARM157556-2