Water Supply in Nepal and its Challenges

It is a responsibility of a nation to provide effective, sustainable and quality drinking water to its people.
Access to safe drinking water is fundamental for the improvement of public health and to assure better
quality of life. Providing access to this basic necessity is one of the many sectors our government lacks
on. Water scarcity prevails not only in remote parts, but is also severe in the capital city. This deprivation
of safe water is holding back on the human development along with economic and social progress of the
nation.

While looking back on history it has not been long since the government has took concern in providing
drinking water supply to the people. Because of population growth in Kathmandu due to both natural
growth and in-migration from other districts, the existing available resources were not enough to feed
the people. Then the government realized it was necessary to provide drinking water for the people in
the valley and thus a systematic development of water supply system with the name PANI ADDA (PANI
GOSWARA) unit was established in 2029 BS (1973 AD). In the last decade various polices and legislation
have been developed to manage water resources, its treatment and the supply of quality water, and
hence considerable progress has also been made. It includes the development and enforcement of
policies such as Rural Water Supply and Sanitation National Policy 2004 and National Policy for Urban
Water Supply and Sanitation2009.

According to the census, 85% of Nepalese in 2011 have access to basic level of water supply services and
10.5% of the population has access to medium or upper level of water supply services. It is a huge
progress considering there was only 46% water supply coverage during the 1990s.
 Fig: Current Water Supply Coverage in Districts

While Nepal has exceptionally reduced the rural urban disparity in terms of access to basic water supply
services, significant disparity still exist in the 75 districts. Despite of the good progress made in the
provisioning of basic water supply to the rural and urban population, more hard efforts are required to
sustain completed schemes and up-grade the basic service levels to higher level.

The government of Nepal had set target to provide basic water supply services to total population of the
country by 2017, of which at least 25 percent having medium to high level of services by the same year.
With that the government has also set target for coverage of 100 percent of population with medium to
high level of services by 2072. However there are a lot of challenges in achieving those goals and
sustaining it in the long run. Some of the challenges include:

Lack of adequate resources: There seems to exist a huge deficiency of financial and human resources on
water supply projects of Nepal. The sector heavily depends upon donors for finances. As a result of
which, a large number of projects and programs are suffering from timely completion. Due to
inefficiency of human resources and lack of affordable technologies even small repair and maintenance
works have remain incomplete.

Lack of appropriate planning, design and construction of water supply projects: Huge constraints have
existed in effective operation, maintenance and rehabilitation due to absence of proper planning, design
and construction. Water supply provisions have largely been understood for domestic propose only with
the ignorance of municipal, institutional and industrial demand during the planning. Also, local sources
are found to be inadequate to meet the demand for water supply for the rapidly and haphazardly
growing towns and cities and transfer and storage of water from sources located at longer distances
require proper planning, design and construction. These are costly and poses a number of social and
environmental problems and challenges. Often the construction materials used are of poor quality
resulting in higher operation and maintenance cost.

Water Quality: Water borne diseases are among the top 10 causes of morbidity in Nepal, but the
establishments of water treatment facilities throughout the urban and rural regions are limited. Water
quality assessment is unsystematic and irregular. Water quality studies done in urban systems showed
that most of the water treatment plants are in poor condition. Often time people rely on small streams
running down the hills for water which is not always safe. The surface and ground water in the
Kathmandu Valley is deteriorating due to contaminations. The surface water is polluted by industry and
domestic waste along with discharge of untreated sewage from tightly packed residential
neighborhoods. The capital city produces tons of waste daily and almost half of this is dumped into
rivers which are the main source of water. Another main concern is the ground water contamination
from arsenic. It has affected 8 districts in Terai and is coming up to be a major challenge.
Quality of Service: The quality of services provided by the Government and other private sectors are
largely in question. The water supply system in most of the area are poor and inadequate with low
coverage and intermittent supply. Provisioning of basic water supply services for slum dwellers, the poor
and marginalized groups have also been largely neglected. All water supply services are in need of
substantive improvements.

Haphazard urbanization: Most of the urban areas like Kathmandu are unplanned and densely
populated. Improper management and highly degraded urban environments are main causes of stresses
in water supply system. Due to lack of an effective regulation, groundwater and rivers are contaminated
hence polluting water sources and jeopardizing public health.

Functionality and sustainability: Provision of functional and sustainable water service is another main
challenge the sector faces. Among the water supply schemes in the country, more than half are in need
of major or minor repair and almost a quarter of them are in need of rehabilitation or complete
reconstruction. This is mainly due to preference of corrective maintenance than the preventive
maintenance. Absence of proper planning, management and maintenance has led to the deprivation
sustainable water services to the people. Hence along with coverage, it is important to ensure the
functionality and sustainability in water supply schemes.

It speaks volume about the nation when it is unable to provide its people with wholesome water, which
is one of the most basic rights. While the world is focusing on using improved technology to recondition
the water cycle in a controlled environment, Nepal is struggling to provide its people with reasonable
supply of water. Although there are a lot of schemes with types rural, semi urban and urban currently in
run, the demand for safe water is on significant rise. In Nepal, most of the rural and semi urban schemes
are operated by Water Users and Sanitation Committee whereas Urban Schemes are run by Water
Utility Authority. The Government has also started some projects to alleviate water shortage on
sustainable long term basis. One of such project is Melamchi Water Supply Project. This project is being
carried out with utmost priority as it is the most viable long term alternative for water supply in
Kathmandu Valley, where the demand is huge and ever increasing. Due the various factors including
political instability and withdrawal of financing partners the project was not able to complete as
planned. Nevertheless, minor efforts were made and finally after 18 years the project is on its last phase.
Hopefully this dream project will complete in near future and quench the thirst of residents of
Kathmandu.

Fig: Melamchi Project layout