“There was a time when we could pump water with an electric motor but since the past twelve years even that hasn’t helped. This is why we buy 7,000 liters of water every other day which costs around Rs 1,500,” says Bijoy. [break]
According to Bishnu Dahal, President of Valley Drinking Water Source and Tanker Association, there are currently 700 water tankers in Kathmandu Valley out of which only 500 are registered. There are approximately 65 water tanker companies that have been supplying both drinking and non-drinking water to the Valley denizens. Tanker waters are brought in from sources like ground, bore and running water from Chobhar, Matatirtha, Godavari, Balaju and Dakshinkali, to name a few.
Siddhartha Drinking Water Supply has been providing water to the Valley for over a decade. It supplies 6,000 to 7,000 liters of tanker water priced at Rs 1,200 and above.
“Due to insufficient supply of water, the demand for tanker water has definitely increased over the years. In a month, we supply around 120 to 130 rounds of tanker water,” says Dal Bahadur Lama, owner of the company.
Another tanker company, Sharma Drinking Water Suppliers, has also been doing good business. “The price varies from Rs 1,500 and above for 6,000 liters as we also need to cover the transportation costs. During the dry season, the demand for tanker water is even more,” says Mohmmad Ayoub, who owns the tanker business.
The booming water tanker companies have in a way come to the rescue of those who have been hit hard by the never-ending water crisis.
Like Bijoy, 45-year-old Sarita Acharya, a resident of Baluwatar, has been a regular client of water tankers.
Every day is a challenge for her since her family of six has to manage ways to deal with whatever little water they have. “We buy water every week and that too is never sufficient. We’ve to spend our hard-earned money on water and that upsets our limited monthly budget,” says Sarita.
On the other hand, Bijoy expresses discontentment over the fact that he has to pay water bills which recently increased from Rs 1,200 to Rs 2,400 per month even when the pipelines has been dry for years.
“We’ve requested the concerned authority but haven’t got any answer yet. We’ve been buying water and there seems to be no relief to this situation,” he complains.
Without water supply from Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL), there are many like Bijoy and Sarita who also have to face the financial brunt of having to spend quite a fortune on water. While there are economic repercussions due to water crisis, issues and concerns are also often raised about the safety and quality of drinking water supplied by the tankers.
Pramod Koirala, spokesperson at the Department of Food, Technology and Quality Control (DFTQC), mentions that it is imperative for drinking water to be safe to avoid waterborne diseases.
“The tanker companies that have been registered with our association go through proper filtration process like rapid sand filtration and sedimentation process to remove the impurities and make it safe for consumption. The tankers also go through routine checks,” explains Dahal of Valley Drinking Water Source and Tanker Association.He further informs that they take the sample themselves and make a report on the analysis of the content and safety of the water being supplied.
“In order to check in a systematic way, we’ve divided our quality check and control sections into various areas like Chobhar and Matatirtha. We’re conscious about providing quality water to our consumers,” asserts Dahal.
DFTQC have been monitoring and regulating the quality of bottled drinking water but it does not have the manpower to check the quality of tanker waters.
“It doesn’t come under our responsibility but should be checked by the government instead. There are many debates on how it should be checked by the Drinking Water Development Board but so far the tankers have been claiming that they supply safe drinking water,” says Koirala of DFTQC.
He states that the bottled-water companies that function in Kathmandu Valley are checked under the standard set by Nepal Government and a similar checking should be done on tanker water as well.
“The physical, chemical and microbiological characteristics of water should be checked to ensure its safety,” he explains.
However, Koirala adds that the objective of tanker waters is different as it is mostly used for purposes other than drinking, which is why no particular standards have been set and followed.
According to Abadh Kishore Mishra, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Urban Development, since bottled water comes under food category, the DFTQC checks its quality. But tanker water has also been seen to be used in many purposes other than drinking, including construction of new buildings which is why its quality is checked by Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Management Board (KVWSMB).
“If the tanker waters that supply drinking water are found to be substandard, their license to supply water will be confiscated and they will also be slapped a fine upto Rs 50,000,” he adds.
Mishra explains that six years back, the National Drinking Water Quality Standard 2064 was formulated which describes the quality parameters set for drinking water.
“But we don’t have Drinking Water Supply Act till now and we’re in the process of making one. Policies are necessary to take action against those who breach the law and supply water that doesn’t meet the standards,” he asserts.
With issues and concerns of water crisis making the rounds ever so often, KUKL has been working on projects to improve water supply. A recent project they have undertaken is to build new tube wells in the Valley.
“The project of building new tube wells has been running smoothly but this alone can’t solve the problem of water crisis. We’re working on the Melamchi Project which we aim to complete it in 2016. Through the Melamchi River, we plan to produce 17 crore liters of water per day,” says Sanjeev Bikram Rana, Deputy Project Director of Project Implementation Directorate, KUKL.
Rana explains that the main problem is that due to growing population, the water sources are not enough. Water is usually brought from the foothills of the Valley but even places like Buddhanilkatha has started to get overcrowded.
“So the demand has definitely increased. The system we have right now is unplanned and it’s been developed in a haphazard way. This is why by 2030, we also have plans to produce water from Yangri and Larkey rivers and produce 17 crore liters per day from each river because Melamchi alone can’t meet the demand,” says Rana.
Rapid urbanization, coupled with inadequate and irregular supply of water from the government, has resulted in a never-ending water crisis in Kathmandu Valley. Though retailers selling water through tankers have provided some respite, its economic impact on families cannot be ignored. Also, there is the issue of the quality of water supplied by the tankers since they go largely unchecked. In such a scenario, the need for the government to tackle this issue has never been so urgent.
Battling water woes
Nineteen-year-old Abhisekh Thapa shifted to Old Baneshwor as a tenant with his family five years back. But no sooner had he settled down in his new home, his family faced the brunt of inadequate water supply. Since the past few years, Abhisekh’s daily ritual is to visit the nearby stone water spouts in his neighborhood to collect around 30 liters of water required for their daily needs.
“We never receive water in our pipelines, so every evening I collect water from the stone spouts which have at least provided some respite,” he says. But he admits that it has been quite a hassle and a burden to face water crisis every day. “Since I have to concentrate on my studies and have other things to look after, it’s actually a waste of time. But we have no other option,” he adds.
With improper distribution of water by KUKL, citizens have been forced to look for alternate ways to fulfill their water needs. Bibhushan Sharma, 35, a resident of Maitidevi, spends around Rs 600 every week to buy jars of bottled water. “My financial condition isn’t that good. Even then I’ve to spend so much on water. But there’s no alternative and it’s a burden I have to bear,” he says.
Similar is Sharmila Shakya’s situation. She lives in Ason with her husband. Since her children are abroad, there are no younger members like Abhishek in her family to collect water. Sharmila, 58, has to wake up early in the morning and leave home to fetch water in buckets from an old stone spout on their street.
“We’re getting older everyday and our health may not be as good as it’s now. So it really worries me to think about how we’ll manage our water problems in the future. Plus, we can’t even afford to buy water from jars or tankers everyday,” she says.
Over the last ten years, Kathmandu’s population has multiplied which naturally has increased the demand for water but there have been hardly any changes in the water supply system. Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) has not been able to supply as per the demand from their limited resources.
“The main problem is that there’s been mismanagement in the distribution of water. Some areas get water all the time while some don’t even see a drop of it. KUKL should address this issue in a more pragmatic way,” says Ramesh Dangol, 25, an agitated resident of Mandikatar.
BIKASH KARKI
Issues of load shedding and sometimes the leakage of KUKL’s water supply pipelines have further added more problems to the water crises.
Ponds, open reservoirs and ancient stone sprouts have been the major sources of water for many residents of the Kathmandu Valley for a long time. But due to urbanization and improper regulation and management of the stone spouts, most of them have dried up, further worsening the water crisis issue.
“When we were young, we never had water shortage. We also had wells from where we collected water. But nowadays it’s disheartening to see how people have to compete to collect water even from public sources. The situation is so bad now that I wonder how it’ll be after a few years,” says 68-year-old Poonam Shrestha from Putali Sadak.
It is due to such plights of the Valley’s citizens that many have already started to look for alternative means of water supply. After suffering for a decade of water crisis, Suman Khadka, 45, has recently installed a rainwater harvesting unit in his home in Baneshwor.
He had to wake up at odd hours to collect water that KUKL supplied occasionally. There were also times when neighbors used pumps in improper ways to draw water that further depleted his main water pipelines. For years, Suman bought tanker-supplied water of 6,000 liters and mineral water every week.
But the many options that he tried were not a permanent solution and were taking its toll on his finances. So he recently also installed a reverse osmosis water treatment system so that he doesn’t have to buy drinking water at all.
“We’ve seen that the government has been really inept in tackling many issues of basic facilities in our country. So it’s wiser to take matters into our hands rather than waiting for something to happen from the government’s side. This is why we opted for this indigenous technology which has worked wonders for us,” he says.
Water crises seem like a never ending host of problems to the Kathmandu Valley’s citizens. With no other options, they are forced to try one way or the other to deal with their water woes and have little respite. There is a dire need for the government to come up with a proper scheme so that citizens don’t have to struggle everyday just to meet their need of something as basic as water.
government’s say
According to the Census conducted in 2011, the population of Kathmandu Valley has exceeded 2.5 million. And the grim reality is that though it is the capital city of Nepal, there is still a dearth of proper water supply in almost all households. According to Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL), the current water demand in the Valley is 350 million liters per day but KUKL is supplying only 130 million liters daily and that too during the rainy seasons when water is supposed to be aplenty.
“The water supply in the Valley isn’t enough which is why we proposed a plan to build twenty tube wells in different areas of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. The plan is to produce two crore (20 million) liters add it to the main distribution channel of KUKL in order to meet the growing demand of the Valley’s denizens,” says Milan Shakya, spokesperson of KUKL.
KUKL receives numerous complaints about the shortage of water supply from consumers but, on the other hand, KUKL is also facing problems not only due to inadequate budget to work on supplying water to all households but also due to consumers who are not paying their water bills on time.
“It’s very unfair for those people who are paying their bills but are still deprived of drinking water facility. So we’ve already started the program of cutting the pipelines of those who don’t pay the bills so that the water can at least reach to those who are paying their bills on time,” he asserts.
Shakya further mentions that there are many people who use machines to pull out more water for their households, which obstructs the normal flow of water supply in their neighborhood. So citizens also need to be more cautious and abstain from following improper means to collect water for their personal use.
For households which are deprived of water from KUKL’s pipelines, tanker water has proven to be very handy and practical. The retailers who have been in the business of supplying tanker waters have thus been providing much relief though such waters distributed directly from tankers raises a lot of concerns about its quality.
KUKL also has twelve water tankers which supply water that have been treated by using advanced Japanese technology. The water is supplied on requests from various households.
“Our tanker-transferred water is comparatively different and safer because we have our quality assured as the water comes from treatment plants. But we can’t say as much about the safety and cleanliness of random private tankers. Though they claim to be as clean, it may still not be as safe to drink,” says Shakya.
Considering the plights of the Valley’s denizens who have to bear the brunt of dealing with water crisis on a daily basis, KUKL has come up with various projects. It is also working on its Distribution Network Improvement Project with support of the Asian Development Bank that aims to change the undersized and damaged water pipes of the valley. This pilot project has already started.
“In the process of roads being widened, many water pipes are damaged and destroyed. So the first step is to work on that,” concludes Shakya.
Though citizens are tired of complaining and facing chronic water crisis, the government believes that the completion of the project of bringing water from Melamchi, Yangri and Larke rivers in the future will help end the water woes of Kathmandu Valley for good. Given the current scenario, the Valley’s denizens can only keep their fingers crossed and hope the plans materialize soon.
nistha.rayamajhi11@gmail.com
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