Every summer, residents of Madhes Province are forced to endure a severe shortage of drinking water, and this year is no exception. Despite the Nepal Water Supply Corporation operating from nine branches across all eight districts of the province, only 3.41 percent of the total population—just 38,000 out of 1,113,870 households—currently receive drinking water through the Corporation’s supply system.
With a total population of over 6.1m, this figure underscores a significant gap in access. The Corporation’s infrastructure in the region includes 82 underground water sources (wells), 27 overhead tanks or reservoirs, 32 chemical dosing units, and 38,000 taps, but the reach remains limited. For instance, in Birgunj Metropolitan City, only 18 out of 32 wards have access to tap water. Kalaiya Sub-metropolitan City has coverage in 11 of its 27 wards; Gaur Municipality in seven out of nine; Malangwa in nine out of 12; Gaushala in seven out of 12; Lahan in 14 out of 24; Rajbiraj in 10 out of 16; and Janakpurdham Sub-metropolitan City in just 11 out of its 25 wards.
According to Rakesh Goit, an engineer at the Corporation, many people continue to depend on traditional wells and communal taps, which results in low demand for individual tap installations. However, he points out that during the dry season, many of these taps run dry, and certain geographically challenged areas have no taps at all—leading to an acute crisis and a high seasonal demand for new connections.
Although the Corporation is working under the government’s One House, One Tap policy, it has not been able to expand services across the region due to resource constraints. A major hurdle is the lack of adequate manpower. Shirish Raj Bhandari, head of the Corporation’s Lahan Office, warns that plans to hand over profitable branches to the private sector under a proposed Water Supply Management Board could threaten the Corporation’s existence. “Instead of expanding services, we are retreating, which requires immediate attention,” he says.
The Corporation has an approved staffing of 200 across its nine branches in Madhes, but only 61 permanent and 52 contract staff are currently in place. To function effectively, an additional 274 staff are needed. Ajay Babu Dhakal, General Manager of the Corporation, notes that groundwater is the primary source of water in the province, and the current infrastructure reaches only about three percent of the households. To address this crisis and expand access to safe and quality drinking water, Dhakal stresses the need for a significant increase in budget and manpower to develop water sources, expand pipelines, and build necessary infrastructure—which, he says, will only be possible through cooperation among all three levels of government.
