700 small water projects face crisis

700 small water projects face crisis
eKantipur.com, 11-Oct-07
BY THIRA L BHUSAL

Around 700 small, under-construction water supply projects, undertaken by district development committees (DDCs) are facing a serious crisis.

Unless the government makes a drastic move to expedite the work and increase budget accordingly, many of the projects will never be completed, say those aware of the current state of affairs. And, many other projects are likely to be completed only after the projects' lifespan has elapsed.

Nationwide 688 small projects are under-construction through DDCs. The district bodies have a hand in altogether 944 such projects - 324 initiated by the DDC's, and the rest handed over to it by the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage (DWSS). The DDCs have already completed 256 projects.

More than 100 projects have been under construction for over 10 years, while another 518 projects have been under-construction for around five years.

Though each project's lifespan is estimated at about 20 years, no official can say when they would be completed.

If such projects cannot be completed within three years from the beginning, their utility decreases while construction cost rises each year. "Therefore, before releasing budget we strictly insist on the completion of a project within three years," said Jagdish Sharma, engineer at Department of Local Infrastructure Development and Agricultural Roads (DoLIDAR), the central technical department that coordinates the projects and provides technical manpower to DDCs.

Although DoLIDAR's priority is toward old schemes, it is rarely applied in practice at the local level. They rather start new projects as per the convenience and preference of local political leaders, according to officials.

A study made by DoLIDAR shows that an additional four billion rupees is required to complete these projects, but budget allocation is usually around Rs 400 to 500 million each year. The government has allocated 442 million rupees for the sector for the current fiscal year. "With such a budget allocation, another 10 to 12 years will be required to complete these projects, that too if no new project is initiated within this period," a DoLIDAR paper said.

The government handed over water supply schemes to DDCs as per the principle of strengthening local bodies and in accordance with the Local Self-Governance Act-1999.

Experts working in the sector opined that the DDC is the body that should oversee, coordinate, monitor and issue permission to work in the districts. "DDC should be powerful and it should have authority to give or deny permission to NGOs to work in the district. But that is not the case," said Santosh Basnet, Technical Development Manager of Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH), an NGO working in the sector.

In fact the DWSS should have been working as a small unit of experts to formulate policy guidelines while the DDCs should undertake all the work and responsibilities, Basnet opined.

Though everyone seems to be advocating the idea of decentralization and strengthening of the DDCs, in practice, the DWSS officials do not want to lose the dominance that they have been exercising for several years in the sector, said an expert preferring anonymity.

According to Senior Divisional Engineer at DoLIDAR, Kamal Jaishi, DoLIDAR is not as efficient and equipped as the DWSS because the latter's expertise is specifically for water supply while DoLIDAR has to oversee other fields of infrastructure development, such as - roads, bridges, irrigation, sewerage etc.

Director General of DoLIDAR, Dhan Bahadur Tamang said it was not DoLIDAR that was responsible for the present state of affairs of the projects. "When the DWSS handed the projects to us, they were already unmanageable," he said.

According to DoLIDAR, scarcity of technical manpower - mainly engineers and sub-engineers in the districts is another problem. Around 30 positions of engineers and around 50 positions for sub-engineers are vacant.