Kathmandu, March 22

Ajita Khatri from Thimi rushes home from work every alternate day to fill all the buckets in her house with water. “If I don’t hurry, there won’t be a single drop of water at our home,” says the mother of two.

For many residents of Kathmandu, water shortage in the Valley has hit their daily lives hard.

Bhaktapur resident Chandra Maya Nayaju wakes up at 2:00am every day to procure water from a tap outside. “Even though we have  taps in our house, there is no water supply through them,” says Nayaju who says she is always on alert to fill up water for drinking. “We have to be ready at all times. It doesn’t matter if it is early in the morning or late at night,” added Nayaju.

The other options, buying water cans for drinking water or installing a water tank for general purposes, are impractical and expensive.

On World Water Day, Navaraj Khatiwada, an environmentalist, explains what could be done to fix the problem. “The only solution is to reuse and recycle the wastewater. Using the waste water for flushing toilets, watering plants, cleaning houses can reduce the use of drinking water for all purposes,” the environmentalist commented.

“Wastewater is available in all houses. People need not go out of the way to solve their own water crisis if they can reuse and recycle waste water.

Validating Khatiwada’s statement on recycling water, Former Minister for Environment, Science and Technology Ganesh Sah also suggested that consumption of water can be reduced by effective use of various technology.  “The government should make people build houses with a rain water harvesting system. Money should be allocated for research on this problem that is so ubiquitous.”

A version of this article appears in print on March 23, 2017 of The Himalayan Times.

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