Shrestha ANUSHIYA, Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS), Nepal
Dilli POUDEL, Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS), Nepal
Jonathon ENSOR, Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York, United Kingdom
Driven by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-6) of ensuring universal access to water supply and sanitation, the government of Nepal has set a national target of providing drinking water to 99% of households by 2030. Subsequently, the municipal governments have heavily invested for water supply under the "one-house-one-tap" initiative. Dhulikhel Municipality, an emerging urban center near the capital city Kathmandu, has set a target to achieve this ambition by 2022. For this, the municipality has drilled deep borewells as the "solution" to the prevalent water woes amid growing water demands of the peri-urban villages, however, without sufficiently consulting with the communities and exploring the potentialities of local spring water sources. Local communities are skeptical of the water sufficiency and sustainability of these deep borewells and fear that the operation of deep borewells can lead to drying of the local spring water sources dispersed in hilly terrain. Some also doubted of hidden political interests in this initiative. Further, they claim community-based water systems fed by spring water sources would rather be a more sustainable option to ensure water for all. Our findings however show that the management of spring-fed systems is dominated by local elites and needs reformation. Collecting information through the phenomenology-inspired qualitative fieldworks and taking knowledge infrastructures approach – networks, actors and expertise – as the analytical angle, in this paper, we uncover the scalar discourses around the politics of local water management and reflect on the potential of the proclaimed "one-house-one-tap" initiative to deliver sustainable and equitable water access to hitherto marginalized communities.
Mots clés : Equitable water access|sustainable management|Knowledge infrastructures|urban marginalized|discourses
A104334SA