Her uncle, Anil Amatya, 39, says that as the public water taps give water only once every week, and sometimes not even in 16 days, the family members have stopped relying on them completely. What they rely on are the water tankers that frequent their place once every two weeks.
With the onset of summer, the problem is expected to get worse. Looks like little Shriya will learn about the hardship of being a Nepali early in life, which is only expected in a country where water scarcity is a daily issue and people carrying empty pitchers and lining them under the public tap is sight that is far too common.
It wasn't always like that, however. In Imadol, where they moved from the old city of Patan, the housing was sparse and the facilities were plentiful; at least when it came to water supplies. The well in their premise eventually dried up and the family members came to a collective decision of calling up the tanker service.
"There are wells dug up at most of the houses in the locality," says Anil. "But they are dry, and I don't think people around here wait for water from them anymore. Every other week, we have to call up our water supplier," he says.
The story of 46 year old Archana Rimal, who runs a beauty parlor from her residence in Manbhawan, Jawalakhel, is no different. There were days when she had to get up in the middle of the night or early in the morning to fill the empty buckets and pitchers. The water supply would be available once every six days for just 10 minutes. The good thing is that she doesn't have to do that anymore because the taps have long dried up.
"The taps haven't given us a drop of water for the last year. At first we thought it was only our problem. Suspecting our pipe was broken, we even had the lines checked. But it is the plight of the entire locality. We are forced to call a tanker containing around 7000 liters of water that lasts for two to three months," she says adding that they have a pay a hefty sum of Rs 1500-1600 compared to minimum charge of Rs 80-100 they would have to pay for the government's water supply.
However, even the water suppliers don't have it easy. Nani Lama of Lama Khane Pani, a water supplier, says that they do their best to supply water to as many places as they can, but the source lets them down. "There are tankers waiting to distribute, but no water at the sources," he says.
No one knows about the scarcity of water better than Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) in Tripureshwor. Authorities at KUKL claim that the daily water demand in the valley alone exceeds 350 million liters a day and the production is just around 90 million liters. There is slight relief during the monsoon, where the production sometimes goes up to 150 million liters.
Milan Shakya, spokesperson at KUKL, says that they have been trying to provide relief to the people facing water shortage. "We do send four to five tankers of water to localities that have been hard hit by the crisis," he says. But this service comes only if the people have paid the minimum charge every month. However, there are many localities that face this problem and KUKL isn't able to provide relief to all of them.
Archana says that though they pay their monthly fees they haven't received anything in return. "It's not much, but nonetheless, it's like giving out money for nothing. I sometimes tell myself not to pay the bills anymore, but I end up paying every time in the hope that the problem will be solved one day," she says.
Shakya says that paying the monthly fee is for the sake of maintaining goodwill between the authority and the public. "People should pay their bills. There should be some interaction and communication between the authorities and the people so that we can do something about the problem. They can decide to pay the bills, which will ensure that they will get the services whenever it is possible, but if they don't, then we'll have to cut the lines, unfortunately," he says.
It's perhaps the hopes of having access to water from Melamchi that makes the consumers pay the bills. "There are many who come to complain about the dry pipelines, but there is nothing we can do about it. Many want to disconnect the service so that they won't have to pay the monthly bill. But those who can afford to pay it, resist making such decision, as this will be, more or less, the same pipeline which will make the Melamchi accessible in the future," he says.
However, the pipelines for Melamchi are just being laid out, and it's barely finished. It looks like there will be a lot of paying and waiting for a long time, without any results.
However, the unavailability of water almost eclipses another equally important issue: Whether the water that is available is suitable for drinking or not? "We just supply the water we get with the belief that it has been filtered at the source," Lama says. Whether the jar water that people deem fit to drink is purified and made fit for drinking or not is not ensured. But water crisis is so big a problem that people aren't quite concerned about that issue.
One such case can be seen in Imadol, where Anil says people fill their tanks with water from the tankers, transfer it to jars, and just sell it. He says that there are many people who are doing it and he isn't sure if they are authorized to do that. Rima Magar, 30, who is a house help, and lives in the area, uses the jar water for bathing, household chores, and drinking. Because it's jar water, she drinks it without boiling.
Clearly, water scarcity has brought forth different problems on different levels, which should be addressed at the soonest. Though people have their hopes pinned on Melamchi, as of now it remains a distant solution.
Though Nepal is touted to be the second richest country in water resources, Nepalis haven't been able to benefit from it much. Instead, it is becoming bigger problem by the day with no long term solution in sight. People have been looking for alternate options. But every other option, in the lack of a permanent solution, remains an unworthy alternative. Meanwhile, given how the situation is and how the authorities refuse to give any concrete answers, Shriya might just have to learn more about the issues that come with scarcity of water even when she's in high school.
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