KATHMANDU (Asia Water Wire) - Chitra Shrestha, a first-grader at Balpremi School in Kathmandu Valley's Thimi municipality, faced embarrassing moments in the past when he went to the school toilet only to find that there was no water.

   Things changed for 10-year-old Shrestha and his schoolmates this October. Shrestha says that his school, just half an hour’s drive from the capital city, now has a huge "water filter" that cleans dirty water and supplies clean water to the taps in his school toilets. 

   He shyly adds that he and his schoolmates no longer have to worry about water when nature calls.

   The “water filter” Shrestha is talking about is actually a wastewater treatment plant built in this modest school. 

   Fully functional from early November, the plan is the first community-based wastewater treatment plant in Nepal, according to Bhushan Tuladhar, managing director of Environment and Public Health Organisation (ENPHO), a non-governmental organisation.

   The reed bed plant collects grey water -- household wastewater except that coming from the toilet --  from 80 households in Sungatole locality in the municipality as well as from the school, where 411 students are enrolled. 

   The collected water is treated over two reed bed panels before being put in a reservoir for reuse in the school toilets. The plant has the capacity of treating water from 200 households.

   On average, 60 percent of common household wastewater is grey water, including those coming from bathing, laundry, cooking and washing.

   Balpremi School became the venue for ENPHO's pioneering effort in Nepal after locals in Siddhikhola area in the municipality prevented the construction of a similar plant there more than a year ago. The plant was meant to recycle water from Siddhikhola, a highly polluted river in the municipality, and consequently clean the river.

   "We finalised the design over a year ago. Siddhikali was the original venue. At the eleventh hour, locals protested," says Dr Roshan Raj Shrestha, UN-HABITAT's chief technical advisor for the Water for Asian Cities Programme.

   People like Dr Shrestha and Tuladhar know by experience that it's hard to sell a new idea in the beginning. But once the initial impediment is overcome and the results start coming, they say, locals themselves replicate the idea.

   Still, it took some time for them to find like-minded people in the municipality to take up the wastewater treatment idea. 

   Local leaders like Krishna Lal Shrestha, now the chief of Sungatole Wastewater Plant Management Committer, Santa Bahadur Shrestha, the school principal, and Madan Krishna Shrestha, former mayor of the municipality, finally bought the idea. The Thimi municipality agreed to even sponsor land for the plant.

   Today, the school has continuous supply of recycled water for toilet use. It treats 50,000 litres of water everyday. The construction cost 1.5 million Nepali rupees (some 20,000 U.S. dollars), which was financed by ENPHO with support from the Asian Development Bank, UN-HABITAT's Water for Asian Cities Programme and Water Aid Nepal.

   ENPHO, with support from partners, has also installed 13 such systems in various private homes and institutions since 1997.

   Meanwhile, a rainwater harvesting facility constructed simultaneously in the school ensures supply of drinking water to the students. This facility collects water from all the three buildings of the school and stores it in an underground storage tank for drinking purposes.

   Dr Shrestha stresses that such efforts need to be community-based if they are to succeed. He cites the expensive plant constructed in the tourist city of Pokhara by the Pokhara municipality through consultants. "It hasn't worked," he says.

   Ownership by locals means that residents of Thimi municipality will maintain their wastewater treatment and build more of them so that in a few years, Thimi would be a self-sufficient and decentralised wastewater-treatment region, Dr Shrestha says.

   But a lot still remains to be done across this Himalayan kingdom. "Nepal is a severe water stress zone. We have not changed our water intensive lifestyle,” he explains.

   Nepal's most urban centres like Kathmandu Valley, Pokhara, Banepa and Palpa face chronic shortages of water. In Kathmandu, water supply is nearly just a third or about 80 million litres daily of the total of demand 210 million liters daily.

   "Our activities are more oriented to bring more water rather than sustainable use of available resources," he adds. According to Shrestha, Kathmandu Valley can tap 44.5 million litres of water daily (MLD) if rainwater is harvested in only 25 percent of its surface area of 50 square kilometres.

   Considering the average annual rainfall in Kathmandu Valley, a house with a roof of 650 square metres here can collect 100,000 litres of water from a rainwater harvesting facility – and this is enough for a family of five for a year. (END/BK/AWW/IPSAP/JS/05)