Ground water enhancement initiatives at Chaysal
By Giri Khatri
Drinking water scarcity, ground water depletion, drying up of stone spout is one of the most prevailing environmental problems faced globally and Kathmandu is not so far from it. Despite of different possible option to overcome such issues the responsible stakeholders do not provide their proper attention. Considering this problem, "paschim paaila" youth network with support from UN-Habitat Urban Youth Fund and ENPHO established Rain water harvesting system at chayasal in mutual coordination with local youth club on 3-8 August, 2011.Main objective of constructing RWH system is to uplift ground water table through artificial recharge along with development of skill of youths in RWH system construction. The system has been constructed with catchment area of 92 m2 which harvest around 11, 04,000.00 ltrs/yr. The harvested water is used for recharging ground water via dug-well through which ground water is withdrawal and supplied to community for drinking purpose. "The harvested rain water is very useful to enhance ground water and also handy for increasing water quality through dilution and also harvested water is pure and not contaminated if harvesting system is clean"- said Bijay Thapa, Engineer ENPHO. Rain water collection is adopted traditionally everywhere and if we add some technology in managerial manner, it would be good to collect rain water effectively which is one of the best water optimization technique as well.
At the end of the installation program, four local community youths become skillful to construct rain water harvesting system and able to develop self entrepreneurship among them. "We got technical knowledge in RWH system construction which is very useful to increase the working field"-said Jitendra Byanjankar, one of the participants from chaysal, a professional plumber. 