Experiences and Knowledge Sharing Workshop on Water Management in VDC Level

A half day workshop for sharing knowledge and experiences of Godawari VDC with Lubhu VDC people was organized at Godawari Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Committee (GDWSSC) office premises, Godawari VDC on 8th April, 2011. The logic behind organizing this programme is to share the experiences and achievements in terms of water management in Godawari with Lubhu VDC people who have been making efforts to improve its water management techniques. The programme brought the two VDCs, Godawari and Lubhu into a common ground where dual objectives were enthusiastically achieved, sharing of experiences and demonstration site visit for Lubhu VDC, the peri-urban site selected for the pilot intervention.

A total of 18 people from Lubhu and Godawari VDC have participated in the programme. The executive committee members from the GWDSSC shared valuable experiences and understandings with the participants from Lubhu. The key personnel from Godawari were president- Mr. Shyam Krishna Silwal, ex-president- Mr. Purushotam Silwal and Vice-president Mr. Ram Chandra Acharya of GDWSSC. The participation from Lubhu VDC involved the members from the recently formed VDC Water Resource Committee which comprised of different stakeholders actively involved in the management of water in Lubhu.

Godawari VDC is a well known for its panoramic views and water resources. The water management in VDC has been very impressive however unlike expected by outsiders about VDC, to have unlimited water resources, the situation was drastically different. The VDC itself is rich in water but the available sources have been tapped by several neighboring VDCs including Harisidhi, Bisankhu Narayan and Thaiba, thereby leaving limited extractable water sources for the use of Godawari people.

Looking back to the history of water management in Godawari, water distribution was initiated by Nepal Water Supply Corporation (NWSC) during late 1970s where it provided 27 public taps covering entire VDC. With gradually increasing in settlements, it further increased water demand which finally led the VDC people to look for sustainable water management scheme. The VDC having its own water source was an advantage while the challenge was initiating the full fledged result oriented water management scheme.  Having already introduced the provision of free water access through the public taps installed by government organization, systematizing and bringing under the rule was not easy. Regarding this, one major issue that the Godawari team reiterated was the need of depoliticizing the developmental works and water, being a basic human right, equitable access to it is a must.

Under the leadership of the then President of GDWSSC- Mr. Puruswotam Silwal, GDWSSC came into formation in 1993/1994 A.D. The new scheme came up with innovative ideas of establishing committee as an independent and self sustained institution. This drinking water committee has been gradually cutting existing public taps down from 27 to 21 and now 8 being in operation. The intended beneficiaries of the public taps are poor, marginalized and economically deprived ethnic groups. Each of these is handed over to groups, each constituting of 7 households with responsibility of total monitoring and maintenance of the tap.

 Experience Propagating Consumers Pay Concept

 Mr. Ram Chandra Acharya quoted, "Free access to water leads the free riding problem and public taps leads to tragedy of commons, here being water. Water consumption in one public tap is equivalent to 10 private taps so avoiding the wastage of water and sustainable water management for long term well being of the people needs to follow consumers pay principle where of course economic capacity has to be considered for meeting the needs of diverse population".

Having water sources in the VDC itself, the need was arranging financial support and building technical capacity. This team believed, for the long term sustenance and institutionalization, local investment is pivotal and therefore they avoided involvement of donors, be it governmental support or any non-governmental funding agency. In the process of arranging financial support through the local residents and the private organizations, they first started with an extensive household survey which identified the social and economic composition within VDC and also estimated the water demand and available yield within the VDC. The residents within the VDC were then categorized into different economic hierarchy and based on their capacity, different households and institutions were charged differently which ranged from minimum charge to over lakhs.

Sharing the experiences by Mr. Ram Chandra Acharya, Key person from GDWSSC

"The efficient water management should look not at short term gains but it should be far sighted and strive for long term benefits. Systematizing the water management might entail making unpalatable decisions in the short term but in the long term benefits it would be good for the VDC and the people. The set rules and regulation should be strengthened with the local awareness and motivation campaigns and maintaining discipline is obligatory. To avoid any distortions in the payment of tariff, strict penalty system of as much as 50% fine should be kept…

They prepared local technical human resources by arranging training program to the interested local people so that they can look after the schemes’ technical problems. The water reservoir and distribution tanks including the laying of pipe has been under the scientific supervision integrating the geological and engineering guidelines to avoid any procedural errors and incidental havoc.  The consistency in monitoring has been maintained where, this water resource committee analyses and make an assay of the equipments and delivers the parts to be maintained so as to ensure the standards. Considering the likely problem of water obstruction in entire region due to problem in one of the reservoirs common in conventional water distribution models, VDC has opted for multiple reservoirs constructed at different areas of the VDC for isolating problem such that under the cases of unavoidable problem in one will still continue the other sectors to perform thereby delivering water services in the region.

Currently this committee has been serving around 1000 private taps where regular meter reading is conducted and the consumed water is charged with graded water tariff system at the monthly rate of minimum NPR. 10 for 10,000 litres, NPR.25 for 20,000 litres and increasing with the increased water consumption thereby having a control mechanism for the water misuse.

Meanwhile, the facilitators also shared how they formed the key functionaries. The nine wards of the VDC were divided into 47 bastis (residences), and elected one representative from each basti with six years of working period while the executive committee, selected from 47 representatives, was constituted keeping 2 years of validity period. This mechanism of selecting key functionaries also has been beneficial in identifying problems and solutions of the problems and at the basti level.

The team emphasized water management is not one time process and therefore regular monitoring is essential for understanding the changing context of demand and supply scenario. Ensuring long term sustainability needs integrate environmental management and forest conservation to conserve the water sources. The Godawari people are hopeful on having water security for coming five decades but have envisioned the need of harvesting rain water to meet the growing demand.

The Godawari team suggested Lubhu VDC to consider certain points in mind while planning and implementing drinking water management project:

•          Drinking water is fundamental right of the people,
•          Water should not be provided in free of cost in order to best utilize the limited resource,
•          Need of rain water harvesting,
•          Avoid politics in social developmental works,
•          Forest Conservation for water source conservation,
•          Do not depend upon donor agencies for constructing their water supply system,
•          Proper management of available resources rather than searching of new sources.

The Godawari team appreciated the shared learning dialogue program and further shared their future plan to visit Palpa in Western Nepal for similar kind of program where they are planning to observe the water management in the hilly terrain.

Sharing by Mr. Ram Gopal Singh, a participant from Lubhu

 "In Godawari despite having own water resource, Godawari residents have been paying tariff for water services while in our case (Lubhu), we are depending on external water sources via public taps but have no system of charging tariff thereby causing excessive wastage of water. We have been looking for external funding agencies for solving our problem which after knowing the case in Godawari, we feel needs to be considered again. This visit has been a guide to understand inter connected matters that essentially need to be considered to overcome the possible obstacles that come across. "

The representatives from Lubhu have been highly impressed from the existing water management practice in Godawari. The major contrast in water management initiatives taking place in these two VDCs was unanimously noted by Lubhu residents as an encouragement to step forward to solving problems.

On critically analyzing own strengths and weaknesses, the Lubhu team concluded that the homogenous traditional Newari Community and political unity in terms of water management are advantages for them whereas absence of water source in the VDC itself and need of exploring reliable water source is the major challenge. With years long history of free access to water from Chapakharka source and Dovan Khola, getting local peoples’ approval for paid water services is also not less challenging.

Currently, the Lubhu VDC people are just having public taps. This Shared Learning Dialogue Programme clicked their mind on the wastage of available water resources via public taps and started rethinking on supplying drinking water via private taps. Regarding replacing public taps and promoting private taps, based on own experiences, Godawari team suggested to go on a gradual steps which will be congenial for different economic groups. After getting to know, the daily water consumption in the entire Godawari VDC was around 5 lakhs litres, Lubhu participants expressed their doubts whether their problem was water availability or unmanaged water distribution system. In this respect, the facilitators from Godawari suggested to conduct a detail social survey for identifying the demand and supply and also stratifying the social and economic composition for arranging the cost needed for the construction of water infrastructures from VDC itself.

 

There has been growing interest of different water stakeholders on the concept of generating fund from the local consumers itself and charging for the provided water services. They have shown interest in arranging a meeting on this matter and sharing the learning from Godawari VDC with the local people for undertaking acceptable action as soon as possible. However with multitude of challenges to overcome, Lubhu VDC people need consistent perseverance and commitment for solving their problems.

Professional diversification and labour migrations in Peri-urban villages of Gurgaon – A field perspective

The field experiences continue to grow and become more enriching with each and every visit. An integral aspect has been, to be able to find something new every time we go to the field. A part of this experience has been to understand the local professional pattern and the kind of impact this has on the migration pattern in peri-urban villages. These experiences are derivatives of close observations and resulting inferences. After all, not everything in research needs statistical justification!! 

A general observation in peri-urban villages of Gurgaon has been identification of people with different backgrounds, different professions, different constrains and different perspectives. Professional diversity stands out as a very important aspect, especially in the context of peri-urban villages. Field experiences have revealed that increasing number of villagers go to local urban centres for working in private companies/factories, government offices etc. With increasing emigration of village labourers, a corresponding dearth in village people working as labourers in the village, has been observed. In fact, a common comment from villagers has been – gaaon ke mazdoor kam ho gaye hain (the village labourers have reduced) or gaaon ke mazdoor ab rahe he nahi (the village labourers do not exist anymore)! The reduction in number of village labourers can have very interesting consequences as observed during one of the field visits. In Sultanpur village, when the Sarpanch was asked why the local johads could not be cleaned under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), he quickly retorted that there are very few village labourers and even they are reluctant to work under NREGA. He also added that although he has the money, he does not have village people ready to work!  Few more interesting observations were made at household level. In one such household, a Zamindar said that he was sure his children did not even know where their lands were! Although such remark by a traditional Zamindar sounds innocuous, what it points towards is a change, which in the coming years will become an integral part of life. These changes are becoming evident in the peri-urban villages, pointing towards the increasing professional diversification.

The outflow of village labourers and the corresponding professional diversification has also resulted into inflow of labourers from local urban centres to these villages. The primary driving force behind the immigration of labourers from urban centres is obviously the availability of work. Another factor that might be causing the immigration is relatively less expenditure on accommodation, food etc. The number of these immigrated labourers increases even more during the harvesting season. With an increase in the number of immigrated labourers, the few village labourers, if any, face stiff competition. Since the immigrated labourers are ready to work for a relatively lesser price, the village labourers are forced to sit at home. This was the story of one of the Balmik families in Jhanjhrola Khera. When asked if they don’t have any work, they promptly replied – Agar kaam hota to yahan baithe thode he na rehte (If only we had work, we would not be sitting here).

What this points out is that there is a whole lot of dynamics associated with the migrations of labourers between urban and peri-urban centres. Since flow of labour is one defining features of peri-urban region, researches cannot afford to be blind to them. Looks like the great migration is not the story of past, or confined only to urban centres, but is very much part and parcel of peri-urban lifestyle!

Monthly update (April) – Gurgaon project

One of our lead researchers, Dr. Vishal Narain spoke at the India Water Forum (IWF) organised by TERI on 15^th April 2011. The title of his talk was ‘'Water security and vulnerability: perspectives from a periurban context". This was a part of the session on "Sustainable cities, water supply and distribution". The event was organized in association with the Ministry of Water Resources and the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Government of India. The IWF theme was ‘Water Security and Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities.

Dr. Narain will also attend the water justice workshop in Pune from 18 to 22 April 2011. This workshop is jointly organized by WUR, SOPPECOM and the FORUM for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India.

The Gurgaon research team met Mr. Swapnil Shekhar from Sambodhi. This was part of exploring possibility of involving them for their help in analysis of data and also capacity building of the team through training programme. 

Field Experiences

Sharing Experiences in the research field

Arranging for the field visit involved regular telephone communication in arranging time for meeting the concerned persons. The major challenge in the field initially was to be able to convey the details of the research, its objectives, rationale, research team and moreover the justification for selecting a particular site for the research purpose and then convincing the diverse community to participate on a regular basis in the research activities either in terms of household survey, focus group discussion or stakeholders meeting. A major constraint and that quite likely from the field, particularly from the local administrative bodies was the expectations and direct benefits in terms of financial or technical support to meet the immediate needs in the VDC. Hence explaining the details and the rationale while making them to visualize the changing urbanization patterns in the localities and making them understand the linkage of urbanization with the day to day changing water scenario which could be more severe under the changing climatic condition required admittedly has been extensive and repeated effort.

The grey documents maintained by the sites are in fact useful in developing acquaintances to the site which could even draw the interest of the locals to participate. The research team's understanding has been, these documents can be really meaningful to the research. However, with the experiences and moreover the prejudice of generalizing the cases of supplying information to the students for academic purpose but gaining nothing in return for themselves had caused hesitation among the local authority in sharing their resources. However explaining the research motives and assuring them to provide the finding details of the research and report for the use of VDC finally has been productive in getting them.

In the case of political lacunae, VDC is local authority and having formal approval from the local authority makes the research institutionally strong and enhances local credibility. However with limited staffs and multiple responsibilities assigned to the VDC Secretary, arranging time for the formal process of getting the formal invitation letter and distributing it to the concerned local key stakeholders was definitely an extra task for the VDC office, and therefore had no interest to get into the business.

The VDC Secretary in one of the site commented "I am over loaded, at times I even have to be a Judge".

However the stakeholders meeting has been an essential entry point in identifying stakeholders and bringing them to a common platform, understanding the diversified perception and interest and priorities. Under such context, the team provided well drafted invitation letter just remaining to be signed by the VDC Secretary and financial support for the letter distribution. The VDC authorities and communities also have to be definitely acknowledged for facilitating the research team by providing their time and VDC offices for the helping in identifying the stakeholders and arranging of the meeting venue.

The advantage gained from being finally able to involve the community and the local authorities has been in identifying the key- stakeholders and successfully conducting local key-stakeholders meeting in three of the four selected sites (Matatirtha, Lubhu and Dadhikot) leading to forming of Research committee involving local key stakeholders while are in the process for the fourth site- Jhaukhel.

 

Among the four sites selected, my visit has been most frequent to Matatirtha. The experience in this site specifically ranges from being initially considered as student trying to do thesis. With frequent field visits, interaction with community and arranging for the Stakeholders meeting have involved numbers of visits to Matatirtha and where happily I am being recognized as researcher. When met by people, there are cases of people trying to get details on the ongoing activities and the plans for near future.

 

The site as per my field experience till date gives insight of the extensive political and power involvements, mainly in the periphery of water, which involves the water entrepreneur for commercial water extraction or the socially, economically and politically strong groups trying to suppress the local authorities regulatory mechanisms. The local authority in itself has its limitations and has not been able to vision and define strict actions to take regarding water management.

 

This is quite clear from a statement from one of the ex-vice chair person and Chairman of a drinking water scheme active in the VDC when questioned regarding the future strategy on regulating commercial well which was previously claimed to have been restricted, " Bahini, vai ra cha, vanai ra garai ma ta farak vai halcha ni" meaning "There will be difference in saying and doing." So it gives slight glimpse about their condition of not being able to clearly define their mission.

 And definitely, addressing the needs of water deprived population and bringing politically and economically strong water entrepreneurs under regulation while the VDC as local authority has weak economic and institutional reach is not a child's play.

 

Also a major point raised by the water entrepreneur in their conversation is," When other VDCs can take our water and benefit why can't we use our resources for our economic gain."

The pressure from the local communites is also feeble which can be interpreted from a very common narration" Aafno jagga ko pani bechna kasle rokne, hamle vanera hene ho ra! "Meaning- Who will intervene in selling water from a private land and who is going to listen to us anyway!"

This shows how the people have been trying to keep themselves away from activities around the commercial water extraction. The condition is such that a public water tap that was in operation from water spring in private land of an individual, after starting his own water business has halted the supply to this public tap which has forced people to explore for alternatives, however the impact is still to be looked into.

The water extraction on the other hand is growing continuously with 6 new water industries been added  within the last two years but neither the VDC office nor the water entrepreneur committee established in the VDC has maintained any document on it.

Diverse Perception on climate change needs to analyzed through Meteorological Data

The perception on climate change and even the water yield from the sources vary from person to While during scoping study, the local perception regarding declining water yield was shared by community people while in the recent field visits, some interviewed people in the locality have asserted the overall water yield from the springs in the VDC has not been reduced. Their logic says, the apparent decline is due to multiple drinking water schemes that have been extracting water for household distribution pointing " In the spring where it was said to have 8" water yield now 18" pipes have been laid so how will there be water in the spring?" This individual emphasized the climatic changing pattern has not been noticed yet in the VDC as the weather is cool and temperature rise is not prominent.

 An old man was so dissatisfied with the depleting river water quality and low water level who commented "Chara lai khana pani paani chaina" meaning- There is no water even for birds. As per him, water is diverted from the natural springs through pipes while the open water bodies are polluted by the effluents and sewage resulting disturbance to the natural ecology.

Among the elderly people a common observation is unpredictable rainfall and the decreasing rain is frequently narrated. A statement getting to hear in almost any conversation regarding rainfall variability is, "Aakash batai pani chaina, Bhagwan le nadiyko kasle k garna sakcha-There is norain, God has not given water, what can be done for it."

The rainfall variation is to some extent evident from the field visits while observation on temperature change has not been much perceived. Moreover the perception varies. Therefore the climatic perception has to be analyzed based on the meteorological data for scientific basis.

Posted by: Anushiya Shrestha

                                                                             

                                                                                               

Understanding climate change from a food and water security lens

- by Anjal Prakash

Participating in GWP Regional Workshop on Climate Change, Food and Water Security was an enriching experience. The workshop was organised at IWMI’s office in Colombo from 24^th to 25^th February, 2011. The concept note of the workshop throws some interesting questions linking food and water security with the issue of climate change.  

Picture courtesy: Ambika Sharma

The opening paragraph of the concept note reads “South Asia, together with Sub-Saharan Africa, is among the areas expected to be hardest hit by climate change. It will likely have profound effects on food and water security. Greater frequency of extreme events, warmer temperatures, increased incidence of temperature related diseases and pests, and increased risks and uncertainty are already evident. Severe flooding in 2007 along the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers affected over 13 million people in Bangladesh; flooding in Pakistan in 2010 severely affected 20 million people. India has likewise suffered numerous events of extreme rainfall, flooding and droughts. In addition the rise of sea level is a real threat to low lying areas in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The economic cost of the 2007 floods in Bangladesh was over $1 billion; in Pakistan it was nearly $10 billion. But the human suffering has been immeasurable. Millions of tons of food production have been lost in the process, adding unknown numbers of food security-related deaths to the thousands of deaths directly related to the flooding and its aftermath, including the spread of disease. Climate science and the projections of its various impacts are at an early stage of development in the region. Yet South Asia is among the most data rich regions of the developing world and is well endowed with considerable analytical capacity for providing policy inputs - a capacity that has yet to be fully mobilized for effective policy and institutional responses”.

So what are the challenges? That South Asia contains a third of the global population, as well as three quarters of the world’s billion poor and that its challenges are numerous – is the central theme of the workshop. Agriculture sits at the centre of these challenges – the concept note reads. Agriculture in south Asia is not only uses the largest proportion of surface and groundwater; it is also most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

South Asian agriculture has the lowest water productivity and its increased dependence on groundwater has thrown new challenges. Apart from the domestic issues, there are also concerns that are common across boundaries. There are issues around trans-boundary water management to which the region has to answer to sooner or later. Therefore collaborative riparian management will be crucial for settling many of the water-induced conflicts in the region; greater ‘hydro-diplomacy’ – both internally and across national borders – will need to balance the region’s growing water needs with larger security concerns.

On the preset of these issues, the workshop focussed on five major areas –

[1] To bring together knowledgeable professionals and experts specializing in regional, cross-sectoral work to identify the current state of knowledge: what we know and need to know to address the complex challenges – country by country and across the South Asia region that is related to climate change, food and water security; 
[2] To distill lessons from the existing knowledge to share with policy makers in the region;

[3] To identify means of effective dissemination of the existing knowledge pertinent to the regional issues, including the outcome of the workshop to all concerned stakeholders;

[4] To plan for the establishment of a long-term virtual platform of professionals that will comprise a South Asian Climate Change, Food and Water Security Platform/SA Network as part of the GWP-SAS network;

[5] To find means to operationalise the Platform/SA Network including agreeing on organisational arrangements with national, regional and international partners in support of a shared five year work plan and fund raising strategy, that will delineate areas for further research, analysis, periodic expert meetings around specific issues, training, publication and dissemination strategies—country by country and cross country.

Opening the meeting, Prof. Tushaar Shah commented that south Asia’s cup of woes is full. The region has about 35% global population but 75% of the world’s poorest billion. There are extreme pressure on land and water in the region. Groundwater exploitation has been one of the most significant leading to issues of water quantity and quality. IWRM approaches have been one of the significant achievements but application of this in South Asia has been poor because of a number of reasons. ‘The workshop will analyse the current knowledge and thinking on climate change, food and water security in the region’, Prof. Shah said.

The workshop keynote speech “What Does Climate Change mean to South Asia’s Water and Food Security?” 12th Five Year Plan Approach and Beyond was delivered by Mr. Mihir Shah, Member of India’s Planning Commission. In an interesting and most informative session of the workshop, Mr. Shah called for a different approach to incorporate climate change issues in India’s planning as it throws newer challenges. He said that water balance studies show a comfortable picture till 2050 but this means that one has to relook at the assumptions made while making the model. The groundwater balance has been showing signs of decline from 1990. Groundwater contributes to about 60% of irrigated agriculture in India and about 80% of the drinking water needs. Both drinking water and irrigation tap the same aquifer. Apart from the issue of water, sanitation is a major problem in India. Huge amount of solid waste that is generated per day goes as waste as wastewater recycling is very poor in India. 

Recently some emphasis has been given to dry land agriculture. He called for a move away from rice and wheat centric approaches, to pay more attention to the organisation of dry land agriculture. This is more because a large area in India is still under dry land agriculture and it is important to focus on understanding these areas from a food security angle. The national rainfed area authority has been looking at these issues. Closing the session, he emphasised that India needs a National Water Commission, that would monitor compliance with the national water strategy.

The sessions focussed on variety of issues ranging from Modeling, Climate Change, and Policy Making, Responses to Modeling Results from Multiple Perspectives, Learning from Irrigation System Management Experience in South Asia, Groundwater Management to IWRM in South Asia. The workshop discussed and deliberated on interesting set of questions related to the science of climate change and its applications with an understanding of food and water security.

However, the issues that were missing from the scene were an understanding of gender and equity. South Asia not only houses the poorest in the world; its social hierarchy is also the worst. There was only one session on social equity by Hamberto Pena, TEC committee Member of GWP.  In his opening remarks Dr. Pena said that the content and scope of social equity in the context of water remains fuzzy. His presentation however deliberated in detail on the issue but there was little discussion in the context of south Asia.  Gender and equity were missing from the scene and schema of things to an extent that we can’t even say that they were integrated into the session as cross cutting themes.

A gender audit of the workshop would throw more light to the way the workshop was planned. There were very few women professionals who were invited to present the work. Not that there aren’t many women water professionals in South Asia and the world (some of them were also in the audience) but just that this awareness hasn’t fetched much knowledge in many workshops I have been attending in the region.

Overall, the workshop focussed on many new challenges on food and water security in the wake of climate change but it did discount on issues from gender and social equity. South Asian Water sector is divided into many camps ranging from purely technical to a social and a political understanding and approaches. What is required is a merger of some of these conflicting views as water is a uniting factor. At this juncture, we need more dialogue between different views to come to a holistic understanding of water. 

               Linear Park - An initiative to save the Peri-Urban River in Khulna 

River Moyur in Khulna has been central to providing very important ecological services to the urban and peri-urban communities. However, due to dumping of urban and industrial wastes during the recent decade, this river has lost its natural beauty and hence its ecological services. Besides illegal encroachments on the river bank, agricultural practices and unplanned infrastructure development (e.g. bridges and regulators) have also affected the natural flow regime of the river. In Khulna, river Moyur is the only source of freshwater for both urban as well as peri-urban residents which is why the civil society, Local Government and Non-governmental Organisations have been trying to save this important river. One of the recent attempts at protecting the river involves the development of land for the construction of a linear park along its western course by the Khulna City Corporation (KCC). In order to understand people’s perceptions regarding this park, a daylong survey was conducted and several interesting and varied stakeholder opinions were observed. 

River Moyur in Khulna is being badly polluted due to urban waste dumping and encroachments.This has increased the vulnerability of the poor urban and peri-urban residents living close to the river course. 

 

Markets such as these meat shops have developed on

the river at Gallamary Kacha Bazar causing serious

degradation of the river. Local marginal people have

been losing ecological services from the river.

Medical waste from this clinic is dumped 

in the river near Gallamary  bridge site at
Khulna. Unnecessary infrastructure like iron
pipes in the middle of the river channel cause
siltation and blockage in the natural river flow. 

Clearly there is an uncertainty regarding the reason this park is being built for. One of the respondents included a rickshaw puller who claimed to have been displaced without fair compensation for the construction of the park. Many believe that the linear park will be a good recreational space for the people residing in nearby areas since currently there is no such place around. “It would be a perfect area for morning walk and nice place to rewind in the evenings, but strong maintenance and security would need to be ensured,” said Mr. Latif, a banker. Although she has not heard anything about the park, Mrs. Jannat Ara, a house wife, feels that it would be a good place for recreation but she worries if there is going to be adequate security for women. Mr. Bappy, a student of Khulna University believes that the Linear Park must be built to save the Moyur River as well as to ensure that the river side is developed in an environment friendly manner. “This river must be saved for the sake of our existence, the park will lessen the pollution along with being a safe place for public use,” he said. A student of Khulna University’s Fisheries and Marine Resource Technology Discipline, who resides near this area believes that the park will not only enhance the beauty of this entire residential area but will also reduce the pollution load in the Mayur River. She believes the aquatic environment of the river is in dire need of being saved and development of the Park will be a great step towards environmental sustainability. Many small-scale businessmen, especially those who have been dislocated greatly oppose this idea since it interferes with their businesses and they complain about not having being given proper rehabilitation. 

A group of motor drivers at Sondanga bus stand (close to the river) allegedly stated that the new Kachabazar in the Sonadanga area has worsened the environmental condition of the Mayur for which they had requested KCC authority to shift the bazar from this area. They believe that shifting this bazaar is more important than constructing this park immediately.

Apart from these specific issues, people have general concerns on how the park would be managed once it is constructed. Mr. Shadan Mallik, a banker, says, “This is a welcome step, but the river must be protected from encroachment, as well as the drains that empty wastewater into this river must be to a shifted to a suitable place outside the city.”

 Text and Pictures - Uthpal Kumar

 Edited by - Vasundhara Dash

Local Stakeholders Meeting - Nepal

A Local Stakeholders Meeting was organized at Lubhu VDC office on 23-02-2011 (Falgun 11, 2067), Wednesday. The programme started formally at nearly the pre-scheduled time in the morning at 8:00 am with the participation of 14 local key functionaries involving participants representing local NGOs, local intellectuals, water users association, social workers and women groups. It started with a succinct introduction about the project, its objectives and outcomes of the scoping phase by the research coordinator Mr. Rajesh Sada and a brief introduction from each of the participants.

He formally requested the research team leader Prof. Ashutosh Shukla to throw light on the details of the research project, who further clarified on the genesis of the research, the objectives, partner institutes and funding organization including research methodology. Committing on towards achieving targeted goals, he also proposed constituting an instrumental participatory committee involving local stakeholders and the nec research team which will be responsible for the dissemination of the information and findings of the research at the local level and as well as perform the role of local advisory committee.

In second session, the floor was opened to the participants for sharing their views on water security in the area, expectations from the project and suggestions for the smooth operation of the project. This brought forward the transforming situations of the VDC and its impact on water resources including the initiations made from the local level and the obstacles perceived for the water management in the VDC.

Realizing the water crisis scenario in the VDC, an action research as the one undergoing has been a need for this VDC and the participants have enthusiastically committed a constant support for the smooth operation of the research. However, the major local concern has been on the research not to be limited merely on a study and producing a report but also on the certainty of the implementation part for sustainable water management in the VDC. The major expectations of the participants noted from this meeting are listed below:

Ø  Initiative for control of water source pollution,

Ø  Identification and management of alternative water sources,

Ø  Study on the impact of existing pit latrine on surface as well as groundwater quality,

Ø  Study on the possibility of rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge,

Ø  Identification of the feasible water supply schemes and programme based tentative cost estimation for possible proposal submission from VDC level,

Ø  Report submission for archive maintenance at VDC,

Ø  Assistance and support in Filtration Tank and Reservoir Installation,

Ø  Formal signature in Letter of Intent among Local Stakeholders Committee and nec.

 The discussions during the meeting session led to an agreement of constructing of mutually responsible and committed committee during the meeting, scheduled on 28 Feb. 2011 at 7: 30 am and proceed forward. 

On the process of organizing stakeholders meeting at the selected research sites, a local stakeholders meeting was also held at Matatirtha VDC on 25^th February, 2011. The design of this meeting was similar to the meeting at Lubhu VDC.

The meeting was held in the hall of the Matatirtha VDC office in the participation of 19 participants representing youth clubs, Aama samuha (mother groups), women groups, social workers, VDC officials and key functionaries working for water management within VDC. Despite a pre-notice circulated by the VDC office, the participation was quite limited in terms of intellectual participation. However the major plus point of the meeting was a representation from female groups brought forward an existing situation of water management within VDC at the household levels and also the representation from different wards and the views put forward revealed the existing competition and poor inter ward coordination  in water management.

Followed by the information dissemination on the research project and the bases for selecting Matatirtha VDC as site by the research coordinator Mr. Rajesh Sada and the team leader Prof. Ashutosh Shukla, the local representatives from varied sectors committed their help and support in the coming days.

The ex-chair person, Mr. Dharma Raj K. showed his short presence and shared his expectation regarding technical help from Nepal Engineering College in extending road network within VDC and a study on feasibility of proposed Integrated Water Supply Scheme. The interest of different communities within VDC has been quite diverse causing complication in identifying a more general action point in the VDC. In the meantime, Prof Shukla highlighted on the intervening points to be conducted in the VDC will be focused on the  quantification of the surface and ground water availability, including analysis of the water quality and committed the possible technical help to the VDC from nec family. He also informed about the ongoing research activities on collecting the thirty year long meteorological data from various meteorological stations within Kathmandu valley and analyzing the climatic data to study the congruency between locally perceived climate change/ variability and the scientific database.

The VDC secretary, Mr. Lomas Acharya suggested nominating a focal research person to co-ordinate research at the local level and networking between the research team and the local community. Unlike Lubhu, participants mentioned that it is not worthy to constitute a committee as one will not attend the meeting if there is the presence of another with different conflicting views. Due to this conflicting views of different people on politics, economics or water market in the VDC, its great challenge for the research team to conduct participatory research method. This meeting however provided a glimpse of unannounced active political interest among the people therefore alerting research team about the possible hurdles during research phase will be requiring some innovative efforts in networking and bringing different classes the concerned mass into same arena.

Authors: Rajesh Sada, Anushiya Shrestha