In order to sustainably manage and upgrade dilapidated and old infrastructures in the water supply, sanitation and hygiene sector in Karnali Province, the Rural Water Supply Service Assistance Center has been brought into operation.

The Ministry of Energy and Water Resources of the province has been collecting and analyzing data on rural water supply systems at 21 local levels with the financial and technical support of the Sustainable Water Sanitation and Hygiene for All (Suswa) project. Four more local levels have been added this year. According to the ministry, the concept of rural drinking water service assistance center implemented as a model in Karnali will be officially launched on Monday with the aim of expanding it to other provinces as well. 

Center is lobbying to manage the water supply scheme maintenance fund at the local level to repair and restore the scheme by analyzing the maintenance data of the reserve tanks of 1,706 schemes of 21 local levels in the initial stage. This center, established in the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, makes an action plan for the classification and upgrading of schemes based on tripartite agreement. 

While adding new and new drinking water schemes, it has been found that the old schemes which can be repaired at a low cost have been stalled, Kamala Khan, Head of the Planning Division of the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, said, 'It is possible to provide clean drinking water to the community even by repairing the old and dilapidated schemes. While staying, the budget is also put to good use.'  He said that in the

workshop, the efforts made by all three levels of government, donor agencies and the community in the field of drinking water and sanitation will also be discussed in the program. In addition to the discussions regarding the complete operationalization of rural drinking water service assistance centers and the creation of a sustainable permanent structure, the main manifesto of the service assistance campaign related to the sustainability of the project will be released. 

The main objective of the Rural Service Assistance Center is to facilitate and coordinate the effectiveness of the financial management necessary for the effective operation of the water supply system. It conducts activities to ensure financial transparency and accountability, including capacity building at the local level, establishing a maintenance fund for the water supply system, as well as auditing. In order to facilitate technical services for the operation and maintenance of the water supply scheme, it is said that the institutional capacity development of the consumer committee (tariff determination, collection and documentation, fund management and operation) will be supported. Analyzing the preliminary data collected during the preparation, it seems that only 22 percent of the 100,184 streams under the scheme are being supplied with water according to the daily requirement.

Similarly, 80.9 percent of streams do not receive water. According to the data of the water supply and sewage management department, 63 of the projects in Nepal are in full operation, while in Karnali province, only 61 of the projects are not operational The condition and data of the stream will be analyzed and a maintenance plan will be prepared The service assistance center is about to be launched. For this, a team including federal water supply minister Pradeep Yadav is scheduled to come to Surkhet. Before that, Minister Yadav will observe the condition of water supply and sanitation infrastructures operated in Dolpa by Suswa project. Along with the official launch of the aid center, there will be a discussion on the progress and learning so far.