This report has also endeavored to collect some examples which reflect successful water management involving communities and outside organizations. The following case has been reported by WASEP (2001) and is reproduced here.

Datuchi, WASEP 1998 Project Village
Datuchi is a village of 115 households with two main parts, Cote and Dass. It is situated in Bagrote Valley. A LB&RDD system that had been established in the village was completely out of order when the community applied for WASEP water, sanitation and health and hygiene interventions in 1998. Since the size of the community matched the criteria set by WASEP, it was short-listed for Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA). After conducting an extensive PRA session with villagers, the community was selected for the project and a Term of Partnership (ToP) was signed between the community and the program.

The TOP required the villagers to deposit an Operation and Maintenance (O&M) fund, which was Rs. 30,000 (WASEP also contributes Rs. 30,000). The O&M fund is used for the salary of the Water and Sanitation Operator (WSO) and the Water and Sanitation Implementer (WSI). The WSO is responsible for the overall maintenance of the project and the WSI visits each house twice a month to collect data on diarrhoeal disease and hygiene conditions of the community. The TOP also states that the community must provide local construction materials, unskilled labor, establish a Water and Sanitation Committee (WSC), and collect water tariffs on monthly basis after the completion of the project. The WSO was trained during the construction of the system in fixing taps and pipelines, pressure testing and in keeping records of system testing. The rest of the committee members were trained in maintaining meeting notes, cashbooks and receipts and depositing water charges in the village bank account. The WSI received training on data collection techniques and on facilitating health and hygiene education. WASEP supplied the community with registers and receipt books to ensure that the WSC maintains an effective record of water management and expenses. The system was officially handed over in 2000 when all activities became the responsibility of the community.

The community was visited on January 23, 2001, to see how the project is working. Households were visited and a meeting was arranged with the WSC members and a group of women. All participants reported that every household is paying Rs.5 per month for water tariffs. The records could not be reviewed, as the plumber, who is responsible for collecting in the water tariff, was not present. The WSI visits each house twice a month and she is paid Rs. 300, but only receives the money from the WSC every six months. In 1999, floods destroyed parts of the main pipeline and the community rebuilt it on a self-help basis. There was no breakage problem with the taps, and only four taps were frozen at the time of the visit. It was also reported that the WSO consistently repairs the taps when there is any breakage and that spare parts are available in the community.
The following case study was developed during a WWF-Pakistan visit in October 2004 to the village of Bulashbar in Astore valley.
Bulashbar is a region in the Astore valley covering 16 hamlets with a total of 745 households. The average size of a household is 8 persons. The village is situated in an area which does not have scarcity of water but these hamlets have been deprived of proper piped water in the past. Their source of drinking water has always been the local nallah which has had problems of water quality and this has led to gastro-intestinal illnesses. Each household’s average daily water requirement is about ten buckets, and in the past women have had to fill buckets from the water source to meet this requirement.

Then about three years ago WASEP came to the area to install a water supply scheme. The villagers supplied manual labor while WASEP provided non-local material and skilled labor. The water supply scheme was installed using water from the nallah. Now the water is cleaner and there are fewer diseases among the people. Workload of the women has also been reduced. But the water is not filtered and so there is a need to construct a filtration tank.

The water is supplied to each household via individual taps. There is a maintenance fund in the village and a maintenance kit has also been supplied by WASEP to the people. The villagers have hired a trained plumber for their maintenance needs who is paid Rs. 20 per month from each household for his services. The supply scheme is operating smoothly so far and there have not been any major hitches. From this water scheme 64 households are benefiting while another 80 households in another section nearby are also its beneficiaries. However, villagers feel that a filtration tank is urgently needed and that only one tank would suffice for both sections of the hamlet.