FEATURE

By Sagar Tamrakar

Water, Sanitation and

© the boss photo file/Sanchit Lamichhane

Solid Waste Management

It can’t
get any
messier
land of scarcity. That’s what Nepal is fast turning into—especially by way of

A
WATER SUPPLY
water supply. And in terms of sanitation and solid waste management, the In the national scenario, water supply
country has to learn a lot more lessons—both at the administrative and reaches 80 percent of Nepal’s populace. “The
consumer levels. The concept that wastage is not to be recycled but to be Department of Water Supply and Sewerage
dumped has also aggravated the problem further. Conserving water, following (DWSS) targets to raise the coverage to cent
the due sanitation process, and recycling waste—that’s what the endeavour percent by 2017 as indicated by the Rural
should be; while NGOs, communities and even business houses have been involved in these Water Supply and Sanitation National Policy
areas, citizens at large are yet to fully buy into these concepts. Which is surprising; for and Strategy, a joint strategy of the
example, traditionally, in the field of waste management, Nepalis had their viable mechanisms. government, donor agencies, DDCs, VDCs
Says Bhushan Tuladhar, director, Environment and Public Health Organisation: “Our traditions and the local communities,” says Birendra
had some highly recommendable ways of dealing with waste. Some 60 years ago, Newars Man Shakya, chief superintending engineer,
used to sell their waste at Rs 0.5/kg which would mean three things—that waste had a Water Quality Improvement and Monitoring
value, that waste could be managed and that one who generated the waste was responsible Project, DWSS. But as Tuladhar points out,
for its management.” He adds, “Besides household treatments, centralised institutional “Irrespective of the water-supply reach, the
treatment of wastes is also a must, and that needs to be led by the government and operated reliability and quality of water stands as a major
by the private sector.” concern—the quality is poor. And in reality,
to subscribe online: www.readtheboss.com 15 Jun - 14 Jul 2010 the boss 89

The major challenge that hinders achieving
the target is inadequate resource allocation
compared to the size of the project. The total
budget required for the project is Rs 3.5
billion, but this fiscal year, only Rs 9.75
million has been allocated for the project.
BIRENDRA MAN SHAKYA
chief superintending engineer
Water Quality Improvement & Monitoring Project, DWSS
the supply is less than 50 percent of the
demand.” Shakya specifies, “Nepal’s status
in water supply is on par with that of other
South Asian countries; and this despite the
fact that countries like Bangladesh and Sri
Lanka have the benefit of plain land. The
problem with our water supply is that 38
percent of it requires rehabilitation; only 12
percent of the population are being supplied
with safe water which has come through
treatment plants.” Shakya elaborates, “Since
the basic water-supply reach is already 80
percent, the 100-percent target can be
achieved within the stipulated time; but
increasing the quality of water—as per the
Nepal Drinking Water Quality Standards
prescribed by the government on 27 June
2006—to 50 percent is somewhat
unachievable.”
DWSS has a five-year target to provide
© the boss photo file/Sanu/Nibendra/Sanchit
this fiscal year, only Rs 9.75 million has been
allocated for the project.” But despite the
budget crunch, work has been going on. Says
Shakya, “We have been carrying out our work
as per the allocated resources and we have
completed 29 Semi-Urban/Urban Water
Supply Projects which cater to 500,000
people, and 15 water treatment plant
projects which cater to 200,000 people in
15 different districts. This year, six drinking
water projects are running, and 15 such
projects have been planned for 2011.”
Tuladhar, too, complains about the budgetary
constraints. He says, “The budget is
insufficient, plus it is not being implemented
properly as no resource mobilisation has
taken place which is evident from the
disastrous situation of Bagmati.” But Shakya
points out that DWSS’s mandate excludes
the Kathmandu valley.
Shakya tries to sum it all up: “In all the
drinking water projects, we try to make sure
that water remains safe at the source. But
even if treated, the water quality remains
dependent on how the water is collected,
stored and utilised in the households. To make
sure that these things are in place, DWSS
conducts different awareness campaigns
regarding different ways of purif ying
water, like boiling, filtering, chlorination and
solar disinfection (SODIS). We also plan to
have sustainable ‘safe-water campaigns’ to
improve health conditions, then we will have
Safe Water Zones and integrate them as
Healthy Zones.”
SANITATION
Perhaps more than water management, it’s
sanitation management that is of a bigger
concern in the context of Nepal where more
than half the population is devoid of toilet
services. Excreta management is also seriously
lacking—most of the time it is a case of simply
disposing it straight into the nearby river—
Bagmati, a dire example of this practice.
“There exists 43 percent sanitation
coverage, particularly in hand-washing, safe
disposal of human excreta in toilet and
household cleanliness in Nepal. DWSS targets

safe water to cities or areas having a

population of at least 10,000, but Shakya The perception of the toilet as a tangible
now thinks that the target is not attainable. indicator of sanitation has changed now –
Therefore, a steering committee has been when we talk about sanitation, we make sure
formed to set a new date for fulfilling the
that the area is Open Defecation Free (ODF).
target. Shakya points out, “The major
challenge that hinders achieving the target
is inadequate resource allocation compared KAMAL ADHIKARY
to the size of the project. The total budget sociologist, DWSS
required for the project is Rs 3.5 billion, but

Sanitation coverage in Nepal

CURRENT SITUATION TO ACHIEVE MDG TARGET NUMBER OF LATRINES

2001 2015 TO BE BUILT
District hh No. of latrines coverage estimated hh no. of latrines MDG target total each yr each mth

Kailali 94,430 36,906 39% 119,565 83,695 70% 46,789 3,342 279

Bardiya 59,569 16,347 27% 75,425 48,272 64% 31,925 2,280 190

Banke 67,269 33,882 50% 68,413 51,309 75% 17,427 1,245 104

Morang 167,907 69,939 41% 212,599 150,946 71% 81,007 5,786 482

Siraha 98,754 18,730 19% 125,040 74,399 60% 55,669 3,976 331

Mahottari 94,229 16,785 18% 119,310 70,393 59% 53,608 3,829 319

Rautahat 88,162 15,150 17% 111,628 65,302 58% 50,152 3,582 299

Chitwan 92,863 73,412 79% 117,581 105,234 89% 2,273 189

Population growth rate estimated at 1.7%

90 the boss 15 Jun - 14 Jul 2010


THE ORGANIC PATH
Deepesh Budhathoki
MD, Nepal Kalpabriksha, www.nepalkalpabriksha.com
An MBA graduate who was running a
successful restaurant in Thamel, Deepesh
Budhathoki quit the restaurant business to
run a solid-waste compost plant and an
organic farm. This paradigm shift, although
he attributes it to his poor health and late-
night schedules in the restaurant, was fuelled
by his father’s passion for the field and his
botanist mother’s technical guidance. Putting
all his efforts into collecting and recycling/
composting waste, Budhathoki has been
providing a cheap and reasonable way out for
solid waste that is finding no firm way of
disposal in Kathmandu, while at the same
time advancing to a lucrative career. His
contention is that the world is facing a food
crisis because agriculture is gradually being
displaced either because people are getting
engaged in other activities or that the fertile
soil is being contaminated due to excessive
use of chemical fertilisers/pesticides.
Budhathoki believes that the entire crisis can
be overcome by going organic. Yes, he knows
that chemical fertilisers give instant benefit,
but those benefits amount to nothing in the
long run because the chemicals will ultimately
kill the fertility of the soil. As a middle path,
he says he would prefer the use of “mixed
fertiliser” because ordinary compost
fertilisers do not contain as much chemicals
as are required for the crops. But resources
like bone meal and oil cake which are required
for composting are not easily available; he
also feels that it’s the lack of awareness among
the farmers that compels them to use
chemical fertilisers excessively.
“Composting is showing a growing
trend; its future prospect is good because
people are gradually becoming conscious of
nutrition, health and hygiene. People pay
premium amounts for organic vegetables
nowadays because they are health conscious
and want to stay away from vegetables
produced by using chemical fertilisers/
to achieve cent percent sanitation coverage
by 2017 as per which, approximately 14,000
latrines need to be constructed each month
for the next 12 years,” says Kamal Adhikary,
sociologist, DWSS, Environmental Sanitation
and Disaster Management Section. He says,
“The allocated central budget is utilised in two
ways—a water supply project embedding
sanitation promotion or stand-alone sanitation
covering only hygiene issues; besides, in
collaboration with private organisations, we
conduct advocacy and awareness campaigns
pesticides,” he says. It has been a year and a
half that he started the four ton/day-capacity
compost plant, but the current production
level is at one ton per day due to insufficient
solid waste which he gets from the Kalimati
vegetable bazaar. Initially, he was working on
a trial basis, but now he has achieved some
sort of perfection in decomposing solid waste,
and has been able to think of capacity building,
mechanisation and going commercial.
Composting helps get rid of solid waste,
70-75 percent of which is organic; it also gets
rid of our dependency on chemical fertilisers/
pesticides from foreign countries. Along with
fertilisers, Budhathoki has also been
producing bio controls, pesticides like
Trichoderma harzianum, Viridie pseudomonas,
and Bacillus. He points out that Trichoderma
is the best—albeit slow in its effect—for
fungal infections in plants, except mushroom;
and it has also multiple functions with its uses
as fertilizer and pesticide
For Budhathoki, the initial days of running
the plant were all about experimentation with
fertilizers and pesticides—much more so
because of the contrasting topography of
Nepal—mountains and plains. It’s only recently
that the trial sessions came to an end.
Budhathoki has his complaints against the
government. He says, “The government is
acting ignorant and neglecting an area where
governments of developed nations and even
India are showing great interest. The
monitoring of the quality of compost leaves
much to be desired. The quality of fertilisers
differs from place to place—normally, there
is a country-specific standard, but in Nepal,
the standards have not been specified by the
agency concerned.” The Department of
Fertiliser, Ministry of Agriculture, is the
government body supposed to be in charge
of the sector, but it’s conspicuous by its lack
of action, says Budhathoki. On its part, the
fertiliser department ought to bring out soil-
through radio and TV advertisements. In
addition, DWSS also sees to it that the budgets
of the District Development Corporation,
Village Development Corporation and
municipality are used to improve the local
resources for sanitation—these bodies have
adequate budget, institutional strength and
community penetration, but lack adequate
orientation towards sanitation. The perception
of the toilet as a tangible indicator of sanitation
has changed now. We borrowed the new
concept from the South Asian Conference on
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FEATURE
friendly policies—it’s only then that the
people would be encouraged to do the kind
of business that Budhathoki is doing. This
also means the government should draft
entrepreneur-friendly policies. Budhathoki
says that the government needs to play the
role of a facilitator and open up “efficient
paths” for entrepreneurs like him by offering
subsidies on equipment and/or other
materials required for the plant.
Turnover
Budhathoki aims to upgrade the capacity
of his plant to 5-6 tonnes per day over a period
of the next one and a half years. He reveals
that the profit margin is about 10 percent,
and the average selling price Rs 15/kg, giving
him a net profit of Rs 1500/day by producing
one ton/day of compost fertiliser.
Distribution network
He distributes his products via agro-
vets, co-operatives, farmers’ groups and
NGOs. Currently, his market is spread over
the periphery of Kathmandu, in places like
Dhading, Kavre and Bhaktapur. He now plans
to expand it to Panchkhal, Kaski, Chitwan
and Makwanpur. In the meantime,
Budhathoki has also been conducting training
sessions for farmers at his compost factory,
which, he says, would be both beneficial to
the farmers and his own business.
Sanitation (SACOSAN)—held in Bangladesh in
2003— that when we talk about sanitation,
we make sure that the area is Open Defecation
Free (ODF). Since then, we have also been
enhancing Community-led Total Sanitation and
School-led Total Sanitation programmes, and
have declared 55 VDCs, 250 school catchments
and 250 communities as ODF. On a small scale,
the trend has had a sweeping effect.”
Meanwhile, under the aegis of DWSS, the
National Hygiene and Sanitation Master Plan
has been formulated recently. It is a strategic
 vision document on how the scattered efforts
could be synchronised and how the funding
mechanism could be streamlined. A steering
committee involving representatives from
MoLD, MoPPW, MoHP, MoE has been formed
to materialise the master plan whose agenda
is the declaration of ODF zones, total sanitation
strengthening, capacity building of user
community, and reaching seemingly
inaccessible rural areas. This master plan
ultimately targets poverty alleviation.
Although Kathmandu is 100 percent
equipped with latrines, the capital, apparently,
is more unsafe than the rural areas—again,
the state of the Bagmati river being a sore
indicator. Adhikary comments, “The efforts at
cleaning Bagmati are ceremonial—good in
terms of advocacy/awareness point of view, but
without a tangible output. A special fund is a
must if we want a clean Bagmati, guided by a
strong institution run under regulatory
mechanisms. It’s not that nothing is being done
in the case of Bagmati—there’s been a lot of
effort, but it all ends up nowhere due to
frequent changes in the
government. There is a serious
lack of synchronisation in the
efforts to make them have a
cumulative impact.” Tuladhar looks at the
matter this way: “There are plenty of solutions
for cleaning Bagmati, but they have only been
taken up on a small scale by organisations like
Nepal River Conservation Trust, Friends of
Bagmati, Bagmati Service Committee, Rotary
Club Yala, etc. What’s lacking is centralised
institutional-level treatment. Bagmati’s
recharge sources have slumped—as in the case
of the Sundarijal’s water which has been
diverted for drinking water purposes and
groundwater generation. Massive urbanisation
has also played a big role, what with all the
concrete structures of Kathmandu. The only
way to revive Bagmati is to recharge it with
treated waste water. A Waste Water
The government-endorsed Bagmati Action
Plan should be implemented, which will
certainly solve the seemingly unmanagable
problem because Bagmati is a small river and
Kathmandu is a small city in comparison to
highly polluted cities like Delhi and Mumbai.
BHUSHAN TULADHAR
director, ENPHO
Management (WWM) model has been put forth
by the government as a Bagmati Action Plan.
Here, the government should play the role of
a facilitator and encourage private players to
be involved.” Some of the challenges that the
centralised waste-water management is facing
involve the transportation of waste water to
collect it at the central plant, and the installation
of a high-tech central plant which cannot
presently be borne by Nepal’s electricity
supply; therefore, Tuladhar points out: “The
more practical way to go about it is localised
waste-water treatment. Nevertheless,
decentralised treatment alone cannot be a
solution for a city like Kathmandu; we should
go for combined waste-water treatment.”

needed to be imported which made our candles more expensive than

CHEAP AND BEST
Hari Govinda Prajapati
Pioneer CS Filter manufacturer, Madhyapur Clay Craft
www.solutionsbenefitinglife.com
Hari Govinda Prajapati’s
family used to manufacture
goods out of clay, and back
in 1980, they started
making clay water filter
tanks by fixing Indian
candles and sold them.
Later in 1987, on receiving
training from the Ceramic
Promotion Project,
Prajapati became a lab
technician and gained the
technical know-how of manufacturing filter candles. Prajapati says,
“The candle-making business could not last long as we do not get
white clay in Nepal; even other raw materials as well as steel caps
the imported ones.” This halted his filter candle production until
2004 when he came to know about a more advanced filter system, the
colloidal silver (CS) filter disc, and started producing it. As it was
totally new for Nepal, that year, he was able to sell 30 filters only. But
today, his annual sales have crossed more than 2000 filters. He sells
CS filters largely to the rural areas—as it turns out to be cheap—but
faces problems in transporting them because they are made of clay.
Therefore, he started manufacturing the filters in different parts of
Nepal—Kailali, Nepalgunj, Deukhuri, Tulsipur, Nawalparasi, Kapilbastu
and Damauli—for their distribution in those areas. Prajapati also trained
people in those areas on how to make filter tanks, and supplied them
with the CS filter discs. He has set a distribution channel through
cooperative societies in the respective districts. He is the only CS
disc producer in Nepal; therefore, he faces no competition.
CS discs are much more efficient than filter candles because their
filtration rate is 16 times higher, cost half the price, and the raw
materials are available in the country itself. Prajapati claims, “The CS
filter that we have been producing is probably the cheapest filter in
the world, which is capable of filtering substance as small as microbes
and keeping the water cool. The 18-litre filter costs Rs 500.”

92 the boss 15 Jun - 14 Jul 2010


Actually, there are four centralised
waste-water treatment plants in the valley,
but all of them non-functional—like
Guheswari because of poor management and
electricity supply, and Sundarighat because the
waste water never gets there. Tuladhar claims
to have a completely sustainable model for
Bagmati, which includes Shivapuri watershed
area protection with minimal use of chemical
fertilisers/pesticides in the surrounding area,
use of toilets for disposing excreta, waste-
water management of houses constructed in a
massive scale in the downward region, and
then the recharging of Bagmati with the
rainwater that collects at the TIA premises.
Tuladhar says, “By taking these steps, the entire
Bagmati can be recharged. But it has to be a
combined effort—waiting for the government
to get everything done is simply silly.” He
says that individual households, hotels and
offices should be encouraged to recycle waste
water to save the subsurface water, the level
of which is decreasing by the day at a high
rate. Says Tuladhar, “The government-
endorsed Bagmati Action Plan should be
implemented, which will certainly solve the
seemingly unmanageable problem because
Bagmati is a small river and Kathmandu is a
small city in comparison to highly polluted
cities like Delhi and Mumbai of India.”
Another key problem adding stench to
the Bagmati is the existence of slums along
its banks. This is detrimental to both - the
slums heavily contribute to the pollution of
the river and it is a matter of health hazard for
those who dwell along the flood plains.
Therefore, they should be relocated to some
other places for the betterment of both. If
the slums are relocated to some other places
then corporate houses like VOITH, Chaudhary
Group, Hotel Dwarika’s and many more are
ready to build gardens along the banks of
Bagmati as a part of their CSR.
SOLID WASTE
Dipendra B Oli, legal officer, Solid Waste
Management and Resource Mobilisation
Centre (SWMRMC), Ministry of Local
Development, says, “Solid Waste
Management (SWM) has been guided by two
legislations—the Solid Waste Management
and Resource Mobilisation Act which governs
the centre and Local Governance Act; and the
Local Governance Act Article 96 Ga 7 which
defines that the solid waste should be
regulated by the municipality, with its
responsibilities including collection,
transportation and final disposal of waste to
the dumping site of the valley, and providing
technical assistance (municipality/HR capacity
building and landfill site selection) to the
municipalities outside the valley. The daily
activities should be handled by the
municipality itself, whereas the construction
and maintenance of the landfill site ought to
URINE BANK IN
SIDDHIPUR SETTING
AN EXAMPLE
Farmers in Siddhipur, Lalitpur
who have been applying human urine as
an organic fertiliser in their farmland, took
an innovative initiative for environmental
sanitation by establishing the first Urine
Bank in Nepal. The bank started its
operation on 17 May with the support of
NGOs EAWAG (Swiss Federal Institute of
be handled by the centre.” But Tuladhar finds
a major discrepancy in the Act. He says, “We
keep hankering after the dumping site, but
the ground reality is that we should be trying
to learn about solid waste management
through recycling/reusing.”
Of late, SWMRMC has started making
efforts to recycle SW via different ways, but on
small scales—composting, vermicomposting,
paper recycling and biogas production. Oli
opines, “Although they are being done on a
The government has formulated policies
to encourage the public to invest in ventures
which use solid waste as resources; the
encouragement comes in the form of land
lease, and tax rebate on the equipment being
used for recycling the waste.
DIPENDRA BAHADUR OLI
legal officer, SWMRMC, MoLD
small scale, they are proof that solid waste
management can be done on a large scale by
improvising on these practices.” Since solid
waste management is being carried out in a
haphazard manner in the major cities of Nepal,
SWMRM is attempting to solve it by taking
solid waste as a resource and utilising it instead
of simply dumping it—the project is to be a
public-private partnership venture, and already
11 bidders have been short-listed. Says Oli,
“The government has formulated policies to
encourage the public to invest in ventures
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FEATURE
Aquatic Science and Technology) and UN-
HABITAT. Urine collection centres have
been established in other parts of the
village to ease the farmers in collecting
urine from the bank.
In the past, villagers had to depend on
chemical fertilisers, which offered them
instant benefit of high yield but lowered
the nutritional value of crops and decreased
soil productivity to a greater degree.
Hence, they began using fertilisers derived
from urine which is eco-friendly and
doesn’t cause any harmful health
impact. Urine is diluted by adding
sufficient amount of water prior to
its application in cultivation.
A staff does door-to-door
collection of urine and brings it to
the bank. Thus collected urine is
stored in two reserve tanks, each with a
1000-litre storage capacity. The bank
provides urine to the farmers at the rate
of one rupee per litre to generate fund for
its operation and management. Fifty
percent of the amount raised in this way is
saved in its own bank account, while the
remaining is paid to the staff.
which use solid waste as resources; the
encouragement comes in the form of land
lease, and tax rebate on the equipment being
used for recycling the waste.” But Tuladhar
counters, “SWM entrepreneurs have not been
getting such facilities and they are only
confined to documents. Yet, they have been
generating substantial amount of income from
the business. There are about a dozen
entrepreneurs running compost plants of
various kinds.” The SWM Act 2066 has been
tabled in the parliament, but has not yet been
passed, and the reason for it, says Tuladhar, is
lack of priority accorded to the sector. Says
Oli, “Policy implementation is lacking largely
due to the lack of local government—elected
local bodies. SWM is not the topmost priority
because there are a lot of other problems the
country is facing. Still the budget for SWM has
been increasing annually, but the central
budget on solid waste is focused on
Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur and Biratnagar
as ‘Phase 1 districts’.”