PPP Phase 3 - South Asia

Department of Water Supply and Sanitation (DWSS) is lead agency of Government of Nepal, responsible to provide and ensure safe, convenient and adequate water supply to all Nepalese, with sanitation as an integral component. Recently in collaboration with Rural Village Water Resource Management Project (RVWRMP) Phase II, a Govt. of Finland and Govt. of Nepal bilateral project, DWSS conducted survey covering half of the Dadeldhura district (more than 10 villages) other than rest of the half by RVWRMP. The survey was focussed mainly in assessing functionality of water supply schemes and mapping sanitation/hygiene status in institutions and households in these villages. The meeting today was to make an update on the ongoing data collection in the field, plan to share experience of using Akvo FLOW and rolling it out in scale in other districts as well. The other objective of this meeting was also to initiate the validation and ownership of questionnaire by DWSS, which used in the ongoing survey to assess Functionality of Water Supply Schemes. The meeting was attended by Deputy Director General Mr. Sunil Kr. Das and Divisional Engineer Mr. Rajat Ojha from DWSS while I represented Akvo. The DDG had some queries on pricing of Akvo FLOW and designs of questionnaire for data collection, in addition to the snapshots of current data collection and questionnaires used. He also pointed out that an ambitious plan would be collecting data from 40,000+ Water Supply Schemes all around the country as baseline and then annual monitoring of it for Functionality and Sustainability. However, the immediate plan can be to roll out in 9 districts of Far Western Region of Nepal depending upon the cost of the assessment and available funds and support from other actors of the sector as well. The Mid term Review Meeting of DWSS will start from tomorrow where the Divisional Engineer of Dadeldura will share his user experience for Akvo FLOW. Another meeting with the DDG is scheduled after 15 days.