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Janakpur Dham, July 29. The water supply project for four villages in Laxminia township, where Nepal’s first president Dr. Ramvaran Yadav’s village Dhanusha is located, has not been completed for 15 years.
Vindeshwar Yadav, chairman of Saphi Water Consumers Committee, said the project was launched in the fiscal year 2064/65 after Ram Varan assumed the chairmanship and targeted 1,000 households in Saphi village of Savik.
The Janakpur Water Supply and Sanitation Department office has set a target of completion within five years. Bechan Yadav, 80, a local, has no hope of drinking water from the project in his lifetime. “It has been 15-16 years since the scheme was launched. It is not operational yet. Now I can check if the drinking water is running, but I don’t have the address,” said Bechan.
Surendra Sharma, office director of the Jaleshwar water and sanitation department, said only pipeline connections were left in the villages for the project, which was in the final stages of construction. He said it would not take much time to start operations if the government provided the budget on time.
It took a long time because the government only provided a small budget each year. Work on the Saphi project has entered the final stage. The only thing left to do is to install water pipes in the village,” he said, “but it has not been put into operation because locals are unwilling to work to install water pipes.”
The chairman of the consumer committee, Vindeshwar Yadav, is also the former chairman of the Laxminia Rural Municipality. Locals complain that even when he was the municipality chairman, he did not pay attention to the completion of the project.
Windeshwar said the drinking water scheme took a long time to be constructed because the consumer committee was not formed as per the wishes of former president Yadav.
“When the Consumer Commission was not yet established, the president was not concerned about the program. If he wanted to, he would have come to the operation,” he said. “I also made many attempts to get the operation. When I was the chairman of the municipal government, the department did not ask for labor donations. Otherwise, I would have done it.
He said he had asked Madhesh Water Supply Minister Shesh Narayan Yadav to complete the project and now the pipeline would be connected and made operational.
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The Belha Drinking Water and Sanitation Project was launched in 1972 in Kalyanpur (12 Tilasi) of Siraha with the goal of providing clean drinking water to 1,200 households in five years. The project was allocated Rs 65 million by the Lahan Water and Sanitation Department Office. But even after nine years, the work has not been completed.
The department office has buried two boreholes so far at a cost of Rs 2 crore and has suspended the rest of the work after constructing a tank. Consumer Commission chairman Kusheshwar Thakur said despite repeated visits to the water supply department offices in Lahan and Rajviraj to complete the plan, they did not show interest.
“It was planned to be completed in five years, but it has not been completed in nine years.” Although he ran to the division office many times, he did not show any interest. Many bosses came and went. The plan is not complete,” he said. According to the department’s assessment, another 135 million rupees are needed to complete the plan.
At the end of June in the fiscal year 2079/080, the departmental office, Rajviraj, spent Rs 1.9 million to purchase borehole pipes and piled them in front of the office door. Rs 1.7 million allocated in the fiscal year 2080/081 was frozen and not used.
‘The work has not been completed. We have nowhere to drink its water. At the time they said every household would have water in five years, but nine years later nothing has happened,’ said Dhiyani Sada, a local resident.
Bishwanath Yadav, director of Rajviraj water supply and sanitation department office, said the scheme has not been completed as the Union government has not allocated proper budget.
Yadav, who is also the head of the water supply department of the Madhesh government, admitted that the allocated Rs 1.7 million was frozen as he could not work after he was given the additional charge of the department head from June 3. “It will be difficult to complete the scheme till the government allocates proper budget,” he said.
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In recent years, the Madhesh region has suffered from a shortage of drinking water, with the groundwater level dropping for six consecutive months from February to July each year.
When drinking water sources, wells, chapakar sources and streams dry up, some places distribute water from tankers. But not only Saphi in Dhanusha and Belha water supply projects in Siraha can easily supply water, many such projects are unfinished and abandoned.
Sabala drinking water project in Dhanusha was started in fiscal 2066/067, Pashupatinagar drinking water project in Mahottari was started in fiscal 2067/068, Dhangadha drinking water project in Sarlahi Basbaria rural municipality was started in fiscal 2067/068, Pariant water supply project Bateshwar in Dhanusha is at a standstill.
There are 372 water supply projects of similar nature in eight districts of Madhesh, Dhanusha, Mahotari, Silha, Salahi, Rautahat, Saptari, Bara and Parsa that are pending. According to the Water Supply and Sanitation Department of the Ministry of Energy, Irrigation and Water Supply of Madhesh, these 372 water supply projects are from the fiscal year 2056/057 to 2074/75.
Many of these projects were transferred from the federal government to the Madhesh government after the formation of the provincial government in 2075/076.
Prior to this, these projects were under the responsibility of the regional water supply and sanitation departments. After the transfer to the state government in 2075, the two districts and one department office were adjusted.
Bishwanath Yadav, director of the Madhesh water supply and sanitation department, said the federal water supply ministry had handed over 460 unfinished projects to the Madhesh government. So far, only 88 of them have been completed.
He said the federal government had not provided a budget for the scheme and it was handed over as a conditional grant. “The scheme has been handed over to the provincial government as a conditional grant. But since the budget is only nominal, it is difficult to complete the subsidized drinking water project,” said Yadav, head of the department.
According to the department, the federal government has provided a total of Rs1.9 billion in conditional grants for drinking water projects in the current fiscal year 2081/082. When this money was allocated to the unfinished projects, one of the components cost about Rs5-60 million.
Department head Yadav said it is estimated that 19 billion rupees will be needed to complete the incomplete 372 plan. The Union government has provided 5 to 60 lakh rupees in the annual plan. Since it is a conditional plan, the state government cannot invest in it. As a result, it will take several years to complete this incomplete plan,” he said.
The department has informed the Union Ministry of Water Resources about the matter several times. But officials from the ministry said he ignored it.
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