SANGAM

Austrian brings water to Kavre village

SANGAM PRASAIN

KAVRE, MAR 30 - Pabitra Sapkota, 40, is happy that water can now be obtained in front of her house and she doesn't have to walk 3 km anymore to fetch it.

Sapkota lives on a hilltop 1,500 m high at Bhamarkot, the highest point in Panchkhal VDC. She and her fellow villagers never dreamed of having water close to their homes as the government and hydrologists had declared that there were no water sources in the area.

Elmar Hagen from Austria, a social worker and founder member of Dhulikhel Hospital, has brought joy to the faces of these villagers by getting water out of the ground by deep boring.

The project he started now provides 100 litres of water per day to 85 households and a school with 400 students. The well is 250 m deep and the water is potable.

The project distributes water through six pipelines to the villagers in Jagata, Maidan, Kote, school area, Thati and Shree Ganesh School. It plans to extend the supply to 120 households in the second phase.

Villagers in Panchkhal had been conducting protest programmes in front of the office of the district development committee and other authorities demanding water for the last six years.

Hagen began by widening a dirt road to get the drilling machine weighing 35 tons up to the hilltop. After drilling through numerous layers of granite, he finally struck water. He spent Rs. 4.5 million of his own money for the project.

"Now we are aiming to develop irrigation and modern farming in order to create income generating activities for the villagers," he said.

Arun Shrestha, executive director of Dhulikhel Mountain Resort and chairman of the Temple Plaza Water Users Committee, Bhamarkot, said they had constructed a tank with a capacity of 40,000 litres. They supply water twice a day and charge each household Rs. 125 monthly. He said that the capacity would be expanded and extend the supply to other villages suffering from acute water shortages.