The Beacon Project’s intervention in Lahan has made a lasting impact in the Dalit communities. So far, the pipe network has been extended by 11543 meters through financing from the Beacon Project to serve eight Dalit communities Dinabhadri, Maa Santoshi, Biharpur, Sahanitole, Champapur, Lahangoth, Ashnaha, Safitole. 160 taps have been constructed, benefitting 960 people. Work is also underway to extend a piped water network with community connections in all ten wards this year. Availability of good quality water close to homes has resulted in greater personal safety by reducing the need to make long or risky journeys to collect water. Women and girls no longer must queue for hours, and the disputes that had become part of daily life have disappeared. With improvements to drinking water and the knowledge of safe water handling, sanitation, and hygiene, they are now reporting lower incidences of disease and lower expenditure on health.
Promotion of good hygiene in the communities has led to better solid waste management. Earlier, rubbish was dumped by the roadside and left to decay, this is now collected in cement rings placed by the municipality in common disposal sites, which they periodically empty. Frequent training on sanitation and hygiene have prompted the communities to clean their houses and community areas. Children can now be seen regularly washing their hands and bathing. The important steps taken across different aspects of water supply in Lahan in response to various physical, technical and resource-based challenges are listed below. The progress made since the beginning of the Beacon Project and the lessons that have been learnt along the way indicate the importance of working on the technical issues, as well as strengthening coordination, monitoring and accountability to achieve sustainable results. Water resource planning Strategic planning for water resources in Lahan is becoming increasingly important as more households are being connected to the network and the population is forecast to grow significantly. The Beacon Project has supported two hydrogeological studies undertaken by students from Tribhuvan University, as well as initiating groundwater monitoring and helping to improve collaboration between the different stakeholders—which will be essential to aid the development of an integrated water resources plan. Borehole drilling and CCTV surveys The NWSC water supply system currently relies on groundwater abstracted from deep tubewells. However, NWSC have encountered problems with boreholes failing due to the ingress of fine sand, which has led to high turbidity in the network and ultimately caused the boreholes to silt-up. The Beacon Project has supported the better protection of existing boreholes, along with the decommissioning of old boreholes. It has also assisted NWSC to develop a new technical specification for drilling—which has been endorsed and rolled-out across all 23 branch offices. Water quality monitoring Water quality monitoring was previously undertaken on an ad hoc basis due to lack of resources. Surveillance has now improved, with samples from the boreholes being tested monthly, field test kits being provided for NWSC staff to monitor basic parameters on a regular basis, and the installation of sample taps by NWSC at each borehole according to a specification provided by Anglian Water. A Water Safety Plan team has also been established and trained, and NWSC has allocated a budget to recruit a dedicated water quality chemist for the Lahan office. Water treatment To reduce turbidity, improvements have been made to the sedimentation tank and both this and the overhead tank are now flushed out on a regular basis. Manually emptying chlorine powder into the sedimentation tank has been replaced by a simple chlorine dosing pump, while designs have been prepared for a permanent inline chlorination system, which will be installed in the next three months. To ensure the new chlorine dosing system is sustainably managed—the past failures of the original systems should be taken into account. Reducing non-revenue water One of the early successes of the project was supporting the NWSC staff with training and equipment to detect and repair leaks in the pipeline. As of October 2020, 286 leaks had been repaired in Lahan and every tap at the public tap stands had been replaced. Improved protocols have also been developed for installing and commissioning new pipelines to reduce the risk of future leaks. Sustaining this progress requires thinking through how to incentivise prioritizing the reduction of NonRevenue Water (NRW). Network design (Hydraulic model and DMAs) Information on the network was often incomplete and sometimes inaccurate, so the Beacon Project supported NWSC to conduct a drone survey to build up an accurate geographic information system (GIS) map, and customer connections were physically checked and tagged. Based on this map, a detailed hydraulic model has been developed, which shows where improvements are needed to ensure adequate pressure is maintained throughout the network. This has also facilitated plans to introduce District Metered Areas (DMAs)—which will allow NWSC to test and achieve continuous water supply within a specific area, in isolation from the rest of the system. Extension to Dalit communities One of the key aims of the Beacon Project is to ensure that services reach the most marginalized and vulnerable communities of Lahan. A significant achievement of the project has been the extension of the piped network to four Dalit communities—who previously relied on inadequate and unsafe water points.
