Lalitpur, March 18:

At a time when the capital is facing water scarcity, the Godawari VDC, which lies approximately 10 km south of Kathmandu, is making money by supplying water.

The water tapped from sources at Naudhara, Kunakhola and Setokakera is collected in reservoirs and supplied to the villagers round-the-clock through pipelines.

In 1994, the locals collected Rs 6 million from the sale of natural resources and constructed the project to supply water to over 200 households after the government could not meet their demands, said Shyam Krishna Silwal, president of the Godawari Water Supply Project (GWSP).

“The project now supplies water to over 700 households, and 25 public taps have been set up in different places of the VDC. Each household consuming 10,000 litres of water has to pay Rs 10 as tariff per month, and the cost for the installation of pipelines is Rs 9,000,” said Silwal.

Schools, hotels and factories consuming more than 75,000 litres of water are charged Rs 4,000.

“Though we have reached to all the nine wards of the Godawari VDC, distribution is yet to be made regular in three wards — 5,6 and 7,” said Bharat Puri, a member of the consumers’ group.

He said: “There are demands for at least 50 pipelines every year, as people are migrating to this area. Considering the demand, water reservoirs with different capacities are constructed in different wards to make the supply system effective. The GWSP is constructing the reservoir with the capacity 0.15 million liters.”

The project also supplies water in tankers. Around 40 tankers of water (equivalent to 0.24 million litres) are supplied per day during the spring season.

The tankers are charged between Rs 50 to Rs 100 depending on their capacity — 4,000-litre tanker is charged Rs 50, 6,000-litre Rs 75 and tankers with over 6,000-litre capacity are charged Rs 100. “We have used the money earned from water supply for the construction of a big reservoir,” said Silwal.