‘Basic sanitation, drinking water under SDGs to be met’

KATHMANDU: Minister for Water Supply Umakant Chaudhary has said the expected goals of access to basic drinking water and sanitation will be met under the sustainable development goals (SDGs). He said the government will ensure cent per cent access to basic sanitation and drinking water by 2030. Minister Chaudhary said so while replying to queries related to his ministry raised by lawmakers during deliberations on the Appropriation Bill, 2022, at the meeting of the House of Representatives on Tuesday. According to him, presently the access to basic drinking water has reached 94% and that of high and medium standard drinking water at 32% . Seven per cent more access to be added to this by Melamchi Water Supply Project has not been included in this. "The SDGs related to basic drinking water and sanitation will be met with the completion of new and ongoing projects at the central level," the Minister asserted. He however said that the goal of reaching 50% processed sewerage system is difficult to be achieved as it is only 3% at present. As he said, the plan, policy and human resources for sewerage are inadequate. The plan for drinking water along with sanitation will be moved ahead in an integrated manner in the coming days and the required budget has been allocated for developing an integrated master plan for this in the next fiscal year. The Water Supply Minister informed the parliament that although water from Melamchi River was diverted for supply in Kathmandu in April as per the pre-determined schedule, it had to be stopped last month for the safety of the tunnel in view of the risk of flood during this monsoon. The floods that hit on June 15 last year and on subsequent days had caused damage to the various structures of Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP). Minister Chaudhary said MWSP was restored and water from Melamchi River in Sindhupalchowk district was diverted to the Kathmandu Valley. "Still the flood debris has accumulated on the upstream side of the river posing risk to the project," he said. Minister Chaudhary informed that study is on regarding Sisnekhola of Makawanpur, Thosnekhola of Lalitpur and Mahadev Khola of Bhaktapur as an alternative to the water supply to Kathmandu valley from Melamchi River. According to him, 1,250 kilometres of water supply pipe have been installed within the Ring Road area for distribution of water from MWSP and of this, test has been conducted on 400km of the pipeline. A programme has been formulated for distributing water from Melamchi in areas outside the Ring Road in the next fiscal year. As drinking water supply and sanitation are the common authority of three tiers of the government, the federal government looks after big projects, the provincial governments the medium scale projects and the local governments the small projects. He also shared that a programme has been included in the budget to provide water in the dry areas to prevent the displacement of people due to lack of drinking water. By RSS READ ALSO:

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