River Source Conservation Awareness Campaign

The peri-urban project team of Kathmandu, Nepal organized a “River Source Conservation Awareness Campaign” in coordination with Lubhu Drinking Water and Sanitation Users Committee on 5th May, 2012. The main objective of the programme was to aware the local people of upstream reach i.e., Lamatar VDC residing along the Dovan river to not to pollute the river as the river is the source of drinking water to the downstream Lubhu residents.

The primary source of drinking water to the Lubhu residents has been Chapakharka source. The water demand in the village has been increasing while the water supply from this source has been decreasing, thus people of Lubhu developed Dovan Water Supply Scheme as an alternative source of water. But due to the poor quality of this water, people have been using this water for domestic uses other than drinking purposes. Considering the decreasing water availability from Chapakharka scheme and poor quality of water  of Dovan River, Lubhu Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Committee has envisioned the construction of filtration tank to make it drinkable. Recently, they organized the formal laying down of the foundation stone for the construction of filtration tank in the presence of Finance Minister as the Chief Guest of the function. Considering the circumstances, the awareness campaign programme was organized to aware the upstream Lamatar VDC residents as well as dwellers of Lubhu VDC nearby river to not to dump the household garbage and waste in the river. 

Around 400 people from different organizations, youth groups, religious groups, sports club, students, intellectual persons, political leaders, social workers and local people came together in the rally for the common concern: Dovan river source conservation. The procession started from Lubhu VDC office premises and made its way along the main road of Lubhu-Lamatar VDC reaching upto Shuvatara School of Lamatar VDC and returned back following another road alongside of the river. The main motive behind following both the tracks along the river was to draw attention of the Lamatar residents to the immediate need of Dovan source conservation and circulate its linkage to the daily water needs of Lubhu residents in the downstream.  The participants in the rally holded placards with different slogans for alerting on river and water conservation and the participating organizations displayed the banners of concerned organization expressing their commitments towards the social movement. The slogans were generated by the local people raising their views and values for the need and means of river conservation. Few slogans raised during the rally were:

•          Let the river flow naturally,
•          Let’s keep the river flowing,
•          Keep the river clean,
•          Manage the households waste at household level,
•          Don’t throw the garbage and waste in the river,
•          Keep the river clean, you will get healthy water,
•          Water, Forest and Air is as important as eye for living beings. 

Reciting the slogans and awaring the people, the participants in the rally also removed and disposed the massive garbage dumped in the river at two intake points. After cleaning the intake points, the procession assembled for mass meeting at public open space nearby the intake point in Lamatar VDC. Addressing the mass, the chairperson of the Lubhu Water Supply and Sanitation Committee appealed Lamatar residents for not polluting the river and threw light on water supply and sanitation programme that has been recently launched. He further concentrated on negative impacts of river degradation and committed to oversee the river health regularly to maintain the river ecology.