Himalayan News Service

Madhyapur Thimi, May 12:

The Madhyapur Thimi municipality, a major source of drinking water for the Kathmandu city, itself is suffering from water shortage.

In this connection, the residents of the municipality have demanded participation of the local communities while drafting or launching any long-term or short-term drinking water programmes or policies, a press release issued here today by the NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation said.

“The participants demanded that the municipality should initiate to take easy technologies of water and sanitation to the grass-root level,” said the release, citing findings of a report-card survey conducted by the Forum, the Lumanti Support Group for Shelter and the Madhyapur Thimi municipality conducted a report-card survey in the municipality.

They also demanded that the municipality construct public water taps in the locality and conserve and utilise the traditional sources of water like stone spouts, wells, ponds and others.

The locals also asked the Nepal Drinking Water Supply Corporation (NWSC) to control leakage of water supply and provide special facilities to poor and underprivileged communities.

Bhuwan Prakash Bista, the executive officer of the Madhyapur Thimi municipality, said that the results of the survey would be referred in the municipality’s five-year periodic plan, which is under planning. Shiva Raj Pathak, the chief of NWSC Thimi Section, said that he would try his best to solve the practical problems on time. Former mayor Madan Krishna Shrestha added admitted that water shortage hit municipality after it started distributing water from the sources in the cities.