KATHMANDU, Aug 07 (IPS) – In the rural village of Khardariya in Nepal’s Dang district, access to clean water is a major problem. Villagers rely on a single poorly managed borehole for drinking water, cleaning and feeding livestock.
Anjana Yadav stood by the well as a neighbour walked over to fetch a bucket of water.
“At least seven families and over 400 buffaloes depend on this spring; this is the water that sustains the buffaloes, and we drink it too,” she said. “In summer, the water level drops, and we suffer more,” Anjana told IPS.
According to government data, only 27 percent of the country’s population has access to clean drinking water. However, the government’s goal is to increase the number of people using safe drinking water to at least 90 percent by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. But villages like Khardariya still struggle to access enough water, let alone clean water.
“This water is not drinkable, but we have no other option,” says Niramala Yadava (Anjana’s daughter) as she shows the recorded water around the well. “We know this water is not safe, but we are forced to drink it, use it for cleaning and even in cooking. We also have to take care of the cattle.”
Khardariya is an example where access to water is a major problem and there are other areas where people face the same situation. The Department of Water Supply and Sewerage Management claims that 80 percent of the people have access to drinking water but it is not safe as per the standards. Most of them still depend on surface water sources like rivers, ponds and these sources are not necessarily safe to drink. And often this water has led to health consequences for the community where there is no clean drinking water available.
Everyday problem
According to the World Health Organization Global Health Estimates (WHO GHE)One of the largest declines in deaths has been from diarrheal diseases, with the number of deaths globally falling from 2.6 million in 2000 to 1.5 million in 2019. But in Nepal, water-related diseases are still a major problem, even though there is a downward trend in the number of cases. GHE data show From 2000 to 2019, more than 140,000 cases of diarrhea were recorded annually.
Diarrheal diseases are one of the top ten causes of death in Nepal. According to data from the Institute for Health Statistics and Evaluation (IHME)Diarrheal diseases ranked seventh in 2009 and ninth in 2019 on the list of top ten causes of death.
Like Anjana Yadav in Dang, Sarita Rana Magar in Solukhumbu struggles to get drinking water from the well tap, but it is not certain whether the water is clean according to government standards. “We do not have enough access to drinking water; even fetching a few buckets of water is difficult these days,” Magar said as she waited for her turn to fill water from the community tap in Lausasa village in the Khumbu region, where mountains lie close to her village. “It takes 25-30 minutes to fill one bucket (40-litre bucket) of water, and I need at least three buckets of water every day,” Magar said as she held her bucket under the running tap.
Problem is not a priority
Although the government of Nepal claims that safe drinking water is a priority, the facts do not match this claim. In recent years, the budget for safe drinking water has decreased, while the need is growing.
Madhu Timalsina, Senior Divisional Engineer at the Ministry of Water Supplysays the government is not keen on expanding basic drinking water safety.
“According to the information we have, 73 percent of the population does not have access to safe drinking water. The goal is to provide 90 percent of the population with access to safe drinking water by 2030,” says Timalsina. “We do not have the resources to support ongoing programs, and achieving the goal is far from achievable at this point. Water is not a priority for the government. We need resources.”
According to the ministry, the budget is shrinking at a time when the demand for safe drinking water is increasing. In the current fiscal year, the ministry received over 28 billion Nepalese rupees (approximately 208 million USD) as its budget, which was 42 billion (313 million USD) in the previous fiscal year.
“It looks like it will drop to 22-23 billion in the coming year,” Timalsina said, “We have not been able to start new programs in recent years due to the lack of budget. Everything is ready, but we lack the resources.”
The Federation of Drinking Water and Sanitation Users Nepal (FDWSUN), which advocates for access to safe and contamination-free water for all, believes that the government is not taking the water issue seriously. “We have been trying to create pressure continuously but the government is not ready to listen,” said Durga Chapagain, Senior Vice President of FDWSUN, “Majority of the users still drink water from open sources and there is no budget allocated for drinking water projects.”
If the government really plans to improve access to safe drinking water for 90 percent of the population by 2030, the budget should be allocated accordingly, Timalsina said.
“To achieve the target, we need to cover another 63 percent of the population within 6 years. The target has been set, but we cannot achieve anything without a budget,” he explains. “We do not have the resources to meet our needs, which is the main constraint. In addition, our sources are drying up and water scarcity is becoming a major problem. Unfortunately, without resources, it is not possible to do anything.”
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
