Almost every year, Lalitpur faces the outbreak of water borne diseases with many casualties from the cases of cholera and diarrhoea as many other parts of Nepal. Most of such cases are recorded from mid June till July every year. With increasing number of cases this year (more than double than previous years) as recorded by hospitals, a strong sense of working together with like-minded organizations and local water volunteers to overcome problems on common ground and strive for improvement in health status of the citizenry was felt.

To support this action, ENPHO initiated networking between UN-HABITAT, Coco-cola Nepal, Drinking Water Division & UEMS and forwarded the Point of Use (POU) program in LSMC as “Partnership for Safe Water”. For this, UEMS has been working as implementing organization in Lalitpur Sub Metropolitan City (LSMC).

Update: April 2009
The following activities has been implemented

• Coordination with LSMC, drinking water and sanitation division office, and other related stakeholder organizations to incorporate drinking water purification and sanitation program in their program.
• Organization of orientation trainings to staffs of all related organizations via drinking water and sanitation division of Lalitpur district, Lalitpur Sub Metropolitan City, health professionals, journalists, stakeholder collaborate with PHS safe drinking and sanitation.
• Awareness campaign on household water purification methods and training to different community groups, volunteers, women groups………..
• Mobilization of trained population to promote and aware household water purification methods to the populace of Lalitpur.
• Conduction of schools programmes on household water purification methods and sanitation and implied to use one of the water purification method.
• Conduction of 10 the street act/drama on household water purification methods at different locations.
• To monitor and evaluate the on going programs at community and schools regularly.

Ted distribution system. The coordination work with different stakeholders has been made for smooth implementation. The stakeholders involved in the project are KUKL, UN-HABITAT, PPPUE/UNDP and Podland Youth Club.

The project will be implemented in Dhalko which lies in ward no. 17 of Kathmandu Metropolitan city (KMC). It is one of such settlements resided by poor and so-called lower class indigenous newar community and poor renters. Unlike other core city areas of KMC there is no traditional water source in the area, as an alternative source of water, upon which the people could rely. This has provoked the community to rely on other secondary and unsafe water sources far distance away from their community.

The project will benefit 584 HHs of Dhalko and 226 HHs of Teku with a total of 3559 population of these communities. The system will have daily distribution capacity of 20,000 litres.

Groundwater has now become a major natural resource contributing the water supply system in Kathmandu Valley and people have been using groundwater since ages through dug wells and stone spouts (dhunge dharas). As a result of thoughtless exploitation of shallow groundwater aquifer, the depletion in the shallow aquifer and availability of the resource can easily be observed through drying up of ancient wells, stone spouts and ponds. Usually groundwater gets recharged during rainfall period. Due to urbanization, surface infiltration has been vastly reduced while consumption of groundwater is ever rising.

This action research has been designed to recharge shallow groundwater aquifer through rainwater harvesting. This project will carried out in three phases, viz:

1. Selection and monitoring of potential sites for recharge,
2. Installation of recharge structures in the selected location
3. Post project monitoring for the impact study

Update: April 2009

25 dug wells and 25 recharge pits have been installed in the selected areas of 5 wards of LSMC (i.e. wards 7, 8, 18, 19 & 20)