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Sustainability Analysis of Community-Managed Rural Water Supply Project: A

Case Study of Kaski District

Article · June 2024

DOI: 10.3126/jes2.v3i1.66230

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 eISSN: 2976-1190
Journal of Engineering and Sciences
Vol. 3 Issue 1 May 30, 2024 /DOI: https://doi.org/10.3126/jes2.v3i1.66230
Journal homepage: Journal of Engineering and Sciences (nepjol.info)
Publisher: Research Management Cell, Pashchimanchal Campus, Lamachour, Pokhara
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Sustainability Analysis of Community-Managed Rural Water Supply
Project: A Case Study of Kaski District
Abhinaya Poudel1, Sundar Adhikari2
1
Department of Civil Engineering, SOE, Pokhara University, Nepal
2
Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Civil Engineering, SOE, Pokhara University, Nepal
(Manuscript Received 16/11/2023; Revised 11/01/2024; Accepted 02/02/2024)
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Abstract
After the 1992 International Conference on Water and the Environment in Dublin, a new approach to rural water supply was
adopted being that the water should be managed at the lowest appropriate level, with users involved in the planning and
implementation of projects. As per the data of DWSSM (2019) even though the basic level water supply coverage of Nepal
is 87.22% among the water supply schemes providing service to the people only 28.13% of the schemes are fully functional.
The lack of functionality questions the investment of different agencies as projects do not operate throughout project life and
the public are facing the problem of not getting safe and reliable water. The main aim of this study was to assess the post-
construction status of these projects in relation to their sustainable management. For this, six water supply projects completed
over the last five years have been studied. During the study, the data was collected from the structured questionnaire, focal
group discussion, Key informants’ interviews and field observations. These water supply projects were evaluated based on
five main criteria namely economic, technical, social, institutional, and environmental factors. From the study it is observed
that the sustainability score of Syaude Lifting WSP is 62.82%, Serokhola WSP is 66.74%, Lumre WSP is 64.25%, Sudame
WSP is 54.97%, Bhachok WSP is 63.74% and Chisapani WSP is 76.90%. The economic and technical aspect of sustaina-
bility is found poor in all of these water supply projects. The major problem faced by the community is the lack of financial
resources and technical capacity-building programs in the construction stage which have ultimately hampered the project's
sustainability. Post-construction training, technical and capacity-building training, support policies and programs are im-
portant requirements for the sustainable development of rural water supply systems.
Keywords: Economic; Environmental; Institutional; Social; Technical
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which have difficulties in performing durably the op-
1. Introduction eration, maintenance, and cost recovery of rural water
Water is essential for all living creatures and humans supply systems. [2]. Community involvement in plan-
and life cannot survive without it. After establishing a ning, operation, and maintenance has been key to the
right to clean water as a moral right in the constitution successful provision of water and sanitation services
of Nepal, Nepal's is goal to provide basic water supply for more than 700,000 people living in remote and
coverage to all its people alongside upgrading the poor regions in Nepal. [3]. During the 1990s, water
quality of service. So, the government has built numer- and sanitation professionals reached a global consen-
ous water supply projects to achieve this target. De- sus on a new approach to RWS. This approach is based
spite the efforts, the desired level of service in water mainly on two principles that were endorsed by the
supply projects is not satisfactory. Managing rural wa- Nordic donor community at the 1992 International
ter supply schemes is a global challenge but becomes Conference on Water and the Environment in Dublin.
more severe in developing countries. A suitable solu- They are: a. Water is an economic as well as a social
tion proposed globally to solve this problem is engag- good and should be managed as such and b. Water
ing Community-based organizations (CBOs) [1]. . In should be managed at the lowest appropriate level,
many countries, the challenge of sustaining rural water with users involved in the planning and implementa-
supplies is entrusted to community organizations, tion of projects
The basic level water supply coverage of Nepal is
*Corresponding
87.22% and among the water supply schemes provid-
author. Tel.: +977- 9860-98-5942, ing service to the people only 28.13% of the schemes
E-mail address: [email protected]
 Poudel and Adhikari Journal of Engineering and Sciences 3(1) 2024

are fully functional [4]. The lack of functionality ques- community as most of the organizations are struggling
tions the investment of different agencies as projects to regularize it. There is a need to find some way to
cannot deliver their results even throughout the project regularize it and to ensure that people are getting ac-
life and the public is facing the problem of not getting cessible, reliable, and quality services in line with the
safe and reliable water. rights to water and sanitation as incorporated in the
constitution as Fundamental Rights, asset ownership
2. Materials and Method by the local level government and community engage-
2.1 Literature Review ment in all phases of planning, construction and post-
construction is essential for the functionality and sus-
In the context of rural Nepal, a study showed that using tainability of water supply schemes and post-interven-
methodologies for drinking water supply projects that tion phase is essential for the sustainability of the in-
involve community members in collaborative plan- tervention as the community ownership is most crucial
ning, implementation, and maintenance allows for lo- for the sustainability of any scheme and at least one to
cation-appropriate systems that are more sustainable two year or post-intervention phase should be consid-
and effective than generalized systems. [5] Various re- ered for the sustainability and effectiveness of the con-
search articles and papers have been published regard- structed schemes. Research to assess the performance
ing the factors for the determination of the sustainabil- in terms of its technical, institutional, and financial as-
ity of rural water supply projects. The main sustaina- pects of the Mangadh Water Supply Project in Bi-
bility factors generally adopted are economic, tech- ratnagar Metropolitan City, Morang concluded that
nical, institutional, social and environmental factors. the technical performance was good with regular re-
[6], [7], [8]. By using 10,789 community-based rural pair and maintenance, institutional performance of the
water supply and sanitation programs data in Indone- water supply system was good due to timely meeting,
sia using multi-nominal logistic regression [9] con- general assembly and audit but showed decreased per-
cluded in their research that the water supply systems formance of WSUC and efficiency of WSUC human
that do not collect water fees from beneficiaries were resource and financial performance was just satisfac-
more likely to be not functioning compared to systems tory as the current income was just enough to sustain
with a tariff system. A study on Niger Delta Region the O & M expenses [12]. A paper studying 496 dif-
studied by [10] concluded water shortage and also its ferent water supply projects constructed under the Ru-
pollution have been caused by the failure of residents ral Village Water Resources Management Project
and even the authorities to either replace or repair bro- (RVWRMP), in mid and far-west Nepal noted that the
ken water pipes, the decay of infrastructure and the prioritization of the schemes by the community, appli-
failure of the available equipment to serve its purpose cation of quality implementation and user committee
and suggested rapid response to equipment failure and management, water safety plans and active mainte-
maintenance of water pipes should be implemented in nance and hands-on technical support and monitoring
water agencies to make the system sustainable. The are the key elements for sustainable functionality of
means of interview questionnaires, observation using rural water infrastructures. The study also suggested
a checklist and documentary review in a sample size that technical innovations like shock chlorination of
of 98 on the Nyasa District of Tanzania [11] recom- water supply systems, digging recharge ditches above
mended that community members be actively in- sources, building diversion channels above water sup-
volved in all stages of the project life cycle including ply infrastructure, and building a lip around the lid of
decision-making in planning, frequent seminars and the reservoir tank will help the source and reservoir
workshops for building awareness and empowering tank to be free from contamination. One of the im-
women on the importance of participating and budget portant suggestions made by the study was to include
should be allocated and timely disbursed to facilitate women at approximately 50% in committees, training
the community participation in water supply projects. courses, and other activities as a basic rule because
The case study by [8] using sensitivity and scenario they maintain water safety, proper operation and
analysis in Magelang Regency, Indonesia revealed cleaning of the water tap, and maintain the basic
that the performance of the water board and response household level sanitation and hygiene activities. The
and support from the community, positively influence paper also concluded that RVWRMP’s step-by-step
the sustainability of the water supply program. A approach water safety plan, post-construction phase
workshop conducted by the Ministry of Water Supply and hands-on support from technical staff led to im-
on Rural Water Supply Functionality & Sustainability: proved functionality which included quality construc-
Piloting & Knowledge Sharing Workshop on 14th tion, provision of proper O&M by the users, capacity
January 2020 concluded that the water tariff fixation building of the users and development of local institu-
and collection has come up as a burning issue in the
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 Poudel and Adhikari Journal of Engineering and Sciences 3(1) 2024

tions to support the schemes during and after construc- water projects. Initially, simple random sampling was
tion. applied within clusters, in which the first household
was randomly selected to process the questionnaires.
2.2 Methodology After the first household was randomly identified, sys-
Firstly, the purposive stratified random sampling tematic sampling was used to collect data from subse-
method was used to select the project to be studied. quent households in the cluster using questionnaires.
The completed project of the Kaski district was di- For focal group discussion and key informant inter-
vided into five strata based on the local government. view, the purposive sampling method was used. Field
To include a project sample from each local govern- observation was also carried out to determine the pre-
ment, a project from each local government was taken sent status of structures of the water supply project.
and since Pokhara metropolitan city had a large num- Data obtained were then analyzed using descriptive
ber of completed projects, to manage the proportional- statistics. MS Excel and SPSS were used to analyze
ity, two projects were selected from Pokhara metro- the primary and secondary data collected. A Likert
politan city. The project list showed that 19 projects scale was used to analyze mean scores.
from Pokhara Metropolitan City, 3 projects from
Machhapuchhre rural municipality, 2 projects from 2.3. Study Area
Annapurna Rural municipality, 1 project from Madi
Rural municipality and 4 projects from Rupa rural mu-
nicipality were complete. A project from each local
government was taken and since Pokhara Metropoli-
tan City had more completed projects, two projects
were taken under consideration for the study. For the
study 6 projects, which are funded by the provincial
government and have a basic water supply scheme
were taken into consideration. The base year popula-
tion of the selected six projects is 8057. By using the
Cochran formula for the population and with 95% con-
fidence level and 5% margin of error, the sample size 3. Results and Discussion
was calculated to be 367. The sample size was then 3.1 Economic Factor
proportionately divided for each project.
Table 1: Proportionate Distribution of Sample
Feature
Popu- Size Of
S.N Name of Project of Sys-
lation Sample
tem
Single
Syaude Lifting Water
455 21 Stage
Supply Project
1 Lifting
Gravity
with
Serokhola Pokhara 22
3435 156 treat-
Water Supply Project
ment
2 plant
Lumre Water Supply Pro-
610 28 Gravity
3 ject Figure 1: Economic Score
Sudame Simalbot Sotre
Pakha Water Supply Pro- 234 11 Gravity From the figure, it is clear that the economic aspect of
4 ject
Bhachok Water Supply
this six-water supply system is very poor. It is seen that
658 30 Gravity no water supply project can score more than 60%
5 Project
Double marks. The self-financing capacity of the above pro-
Rupakot 3 Chisapani Wa-
2665 121 Stage
6
ter Supply Project
Lifting ject is null as there is no surplus fund for cost recovery,
expanding infrastructure and replacement of the sys-
8057 367
Total tem after the completion of the design period. They
used to depend upon the investment agency for any
In each project, the cluster sampling method was used expansion and repair of the project. Sudame Simalbot
to collect quantitative data, in which settlements were WSP got 0% marks in economic factor because it did
not evenly distributed but clustered in clusters near not collect any water tariff at all. This project has the
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 Poudel and Adhikari Journal of Engineering and Sciences 3(1) 2024

lowest score and supports the finding of [9] . on the importance of community participation in wa-
ter supply projects.
3.2 Technical Factor
3.4 Institutional Factor

Figure 2: Technical Score

The figure shows that the technical aspects of all the

studied water supply projects are average as scores are Figure 4: Institutional Score
between 55 and 70 marks. The main reason hindering
the technical aspects is the non-availability of spare The institutional factors are more significant for post-
parts for the repair and rehabilitation of the system as construction service delivery. It includes how the so-
no project has spare parts available and only one pro- cial organization is formed and run to provide effective,
ject has received VMW training. The average marks efficient, timely and impartial service to the people.
agree with the findings of [10] that the failure of the The beneficiary of the project forms the user commit-
available equipment to serve its purpose and sug- tee based on election ensuring the participation of the
gested rapid response to equipment failure and women in the governing committee. The figure shows
maintenance of water pipes should be implemented that the institutional factor of all the water supply pro-
in water agencies to make the system sustainable. jects is fluctuating. The project with high institutional
marks has a high overall score of sustainability as well.
3.3 Social Factor This supports the finding of [8] that the performance
of the water board and response and support from the
community, positively influence the sustainability of
the water supply program.
3.5 Environmental Factor

Figure 3: Social Score

Among all the factors, the social factor of the studied

projects is highest, this is because of the involvement
of the people and also women participation. The re- Figure 5: Environmental Score
spondents claimed that they are actively involved in The results of environmental aspects are average in
the construction process, meetings and decision-mak- these water supply systems. The only project with wa-
ing. The water supply project links the whole commu- ter quality tested has the highest score. People feel that
nity together as without water people cannot survive. due to the ongoing climate change, the sources are
It is even seen that in the two lifting projects when the slowly drying up and settling down so the intervention
collected money is not enough to repair the electrical of government is needed in source protection in the
equipment the people collect money and repair the days to come. Similarly, the provision of filtration is
equipment. This supports the recommendation of [11] needed in every project to enhance the water quality

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 Poudel and Adhikari Journal of Engineering and Sciences 3(1) 2024

and ultimately to improve the sustainability of the wa- the validity was accessed by cross-checking the re-
ter supply system. sponses from the public and user committee by asking
the same questionnaires, direct field observation, and
3.5 Overall Score of Sustainability another audit as well as annual reports. For reliability
of the questionnaire Cronbach Alpha was calculated
Table 2: Overall Score of Sustainability using Microsoft Excel and the following result was ob-
tained.
Eco. Env. Table 3: Cronbach Alpha Score
Fac- Tech. Social Inst. Fac-
Number of Cronbach Interpreta-
Name of tors Factors Factors Factors tors S.N Factor
respondents alpha tion
S.N Project (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) Total
Economic
Syaude 1 367 0.736 Acceptable
Factor
Lifting Technical
2 367 0.720 Acceptable
1 WSP 35.74 59.60 88.56 75.24 62.28 62.82 Factor
3 Social Factor 367 0.725 Acceptable
Serokhola
Pokhara Institutional
4 367 0.802 Good
2 22 WSP 53.52 60.24 87.64 71.36 65.00 66.74 Factor
Lumre Environmen-
5 367 0.808 Good
3 WSP 29.24 68.00 89.72 72.00 94.42 64.25 tal Factor
Sudame
Simalbot Total 367 0.726 Acceptable
Sotre
Pakha
4 WSP 0.00 69.12 94.08 52.36 83.98 54.97
Bhachok
5 WSP 56.17 56.80 82.91 66.00 57.13 63.74 4. Conclusions
Rupakot 3
Chisapani
The participatory approach here is working well in-
6 WSP 57.80 65.72 89.68 99.16 92.54 76.90 volving all stakeholders. The schemes are functional
Mean 64.90 despite the certain number of breakdowns and people
are ready to accumulate their available resources in the
Among the studied projects only one project got a time of need to resolve the immediate problem. But for
score of more than 70% and is sustainable, whereas the sustainable development and management of these
the other five projects got a score between 30%-70% water supply projects, huge and continuous effort
which showed that the projects are only partially sus- should be delivered especially in the sector of the post-
tainable. The overall mean score of all the projects construction phase of the project. Post Construction
was 64.90%. Regarding the factors of sustainability, Support programs should be included in plans and pol-
all of the projects are weak in the economic and tech- icies of the government and implementing agencies. It
nical criteria. Similarly, there are some encouraging should include the provision of training to the commit-
results in social factors whereas institutional and en- tee for self-sustaining, emergency funds for repair and
vironmental aspects remain unstable. The highest replacement of pump, motor and electrical accessories,
mark obtained is by Chisapani WSP as it is the only availability of spare parts, technical and capacity
project that has been provided post-construction building training and so on. For increasing sustainabil-
training as well as village maintenance training ity step by step approach water safety plan, post-con-
which helped them realize the importance of com- struction phase and hands-on support from technical
munity participation and women's involvement. The staff which includes provision of proper O&M by the
score supports the finding of [8].The difference in users, capacity building of the users and development
the collection method of tariff and different rates of of local institutions to support the schemes during and
tariff support the conclusions of a workshop con- after construction is required which has also been con-
ducted by the Ministry of Water Supply on Rural cluded by the research of RVWRMP project.
Water Supply Functionality & Sustainability.
Acknowledgment
3.6 Validity and Reliability of Instrument
This work is supported by the Research Program sup-
To find out the validity of the research instrument, the ported by the Department of Construction Manage-
opinions of experts in the field, especially of the super- ment of Pokhara University, Nepal.
visor and teaching staff, were asked. This facilitated
the necessary revision and modification of research in- References
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 Poudel and Adhikari Journal of Engineering and Sciences 3(1) 2024

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