Sharmila Tamang of Phidim-1 visits four to five water taps of the town to look for drinking water. "I´m tired of searching for water," says Tamang. "I´ve lots of things to do at home and I don´t know how I´ll manage," she said, complaining apathy on the part of authorities to address the problem.
Sabita Magar, who came from Lungruppa-3 to Phidim for a six-month tailoring training, said, "We have to get up very early in the morning to fetch water, and if we are late, we will have no chance of getting water."
The Phidim Drinking Water and Sanitation Project has been supplying water in Phidim since 1997. The project distributes water channeled from Naamdu River, which is 10 km away, through 1,150 taps. But the supply is far less than the demand and the water supplied by the project is untreated.
It supplies water for only two to three hours a day. President of the project management committee Gajaadhar Bhattarai said the committee was forced to cut supply hours as it has not been able to meet the demand.
The project supplies water to only five wards of Phidim. As the water supplied is not clean, the locals use it only for washing, bathing and farming purposes.
Locals said the drinking water problem aggravated due to fast urbanization.
Meanwhile, the local chamber of commerce and industry has plans to distribute clean drinking water through 25 taps in the town through a new initiative.
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