This short study on water
scarcity grew out of a conversation with Louise Whiting of the Regional Office
for Asia and the Pacific of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations at the Stockholm World Water Week in August 2017. It was further
explored in Yangon on 13 December 2017 following the Asia Pacific Water Forum
with a group of prominent water scholars who had come to attend the forum. We
would like to thank all of them and the South Asia Water Scarcity Programme for
their insights and enthusiasm. The task of taking this forward came to the
International Water Association, and we have to thank Bushra Nishat, its
programme manager for South Asia, for all the help and patience.
In Nepal, we faced a rather
peculiar situation: although water scarcity in various sectors and places is
ubiquitous for a variety of reasons, deeper exploration of the topic itself is
almost taboo in public discourse and academia because Nepalis have, over the
years, especially at the official and political levels, self-hyp-notized
themselves into believing that the country is “rich in water resources, second
in the world only to Brazil”. This quote of questionable veracity is found in
speeches of ministers and politicians right down to school textbooks, no matter
that what the country is really rich in is four monsoon months of floods and
eight months thereafter of drought.
This state of the national
mindset presented a problem for us since there are very few studies and
documents addressing water scarcity per se. There are studies of irrigation or
urban water supply aplenty and the notion of scarcity is embedded within all
projects under them; but it is not explicitly addressed nor is there any
drought policy as such. As a result, besides teasing out the issue of scarcity
from avail-able reports, methodologically we had to rely on discussions with
experts and officials, many of whom spoke on the shortcomings of the scarcity
policy on the condition of anonymity but alerted us about existing and
forthcoming thinkings on this subject. Of those who were open with their views,
we would specifically like to thank Bhaba Prasad Tripathi of the International
Rice Research Institute Nepal Office, Executive Director Baidya Nath Mahato of
National Agriculture Research Council NARC, Nepal’s leading rice expert Bhola
Man Sing Basnet, Under Secretary (Technical) Parashu Ram Adhikari of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Madhav Belbase, Joint Secretary of the Water and
Energy Commission Secretariat, for their insightful comments. At Nepal Water
Conservation Foundation, we would like to thank our staff for their help in
conducting a quick survey of water supply tankers and bottled-water suppliers
in the Kathmandu Valley.
All of the above who have helped
us are in no way responsible for the analysis, views and conclusions in this
report which are those of the authors alone.