Taking Water to Western Nepal

July 25, 2013
WE’RE delighted to announce a new collaboration agreement which will enable us to improve health and food production in Nepal.
We have already installed Hydraulic Ram Pump (Hydram) water transportation systems in four areas of Dhading, Nepal, which have improved health, reduced the time and physical demands of carrying water from rivers up mountains, and increased crop growth and incomes.
And we are now set to work with the Centre for Rural Technology Nepal (CRT/N), to extend the programme to three new areas.
Jagatbhanjyang, Keworebhanjyang and Malayangkot are all in the Syangja District, in Nepal’s Western Development Zone.
The region receives 80 per cent of its relatively low total annual rainfall in just three monsoon months, meaning water is scarce and valuable for three quarters of every year.
Yet only 13 per cent of the land is irrigated, almost all of it in the valley bottoms. The region suffers also from high rates of male migration for work in India and the Middle East, and there is a clear and urgent need to help those who remain develop secure productive livelihoods to support their families.
The Hydram system, which has already provided clean water to hundreds of people in Dhading, is to be delivered to the three communities, where it will benefit up to 10,896 people by providing clean water for drinking, washing and irrigation purposes, all year round.
The water will be linked to multi-use, gravity-fed distribution systems for homes, schools and micro-enterprises, and for irrigation systems which will enable high-value vegetable crops to be grown in the dry season, potentially doubling annual household incomes.