Growing load shedding hits water production

KATHMANDU, March 4: Increasing hours of load shedding is deepening water crisis with consumers having to wait 10 for days to collect a gallon of water delivered by Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited tanker.

Officials at the Distribution Section of the Kathmandu Upatyaka Khenipani Limited (KUKL) said growing power cut has paralyzed the production capacity of its deep tube wells.

There are slightly over 60 deep tube wells, the main source of drinking water in dry season, in the valley. "Due to growing load shedding, most of our deep tube wells are not operational," Tilak Mohan Bhandari, chief of the section, said. He said that only few tube wells are connected with power generators to produce water at the time of load shedding. "Our existing resources do not allow us to use generators to run each and every deep tube wells," he added.

With water production shrinking, pressure has been mounting on the KUKL administration. Water starved consumers have started to throng KUKL´s main office to complain about water crisis.

"Pressure has been mounting in recent days. We have been receiving more complaints," Milan Kumar Shakya, spokesperson of KUKL, said. He said that consumers have had to wait 10 days to get drinking water in some places. Consumers, who had been getting water every three days, have to wait at least five days, Shakya informed.
The KUKL has also published a new water distribution schedules to inform the consumer.

"Consumers are aware about the condition of production and the KUKL´s limitation," Shakya said, adding, "Those who come to our office to complain about water crisis ask us to be fair while distributing water."

The KUKL has been distributing water through tankers to some areas in the dry season.
The KUKL said that demand for drinking water in the valley is over 360 million liters per day, whereas production hardly reaches 100 million liters in the dry season.

Source: REPUBLICA