Local people in Ramechhap are having an extremely hard time coping with water woes, while school students are the ones who are affected the most. Students in Bangesalla Higher Secondary School located at Purana VDC are dependent on houses near the school for drinking water. However, when residents nearby deny them water, they have to wait the whole day to reach home and quench their thirst.

Chandreshwor Prasad Yadav, headmaster of the school, said local women have to wait for the whole night to get a pitcher full of water. “Due to the lack of staffers, we have not been able to manage water in the school itself,” Yadav said. He said that if they were to send the school assistant to fetch water, there would be no one to ring the bell. The concern has become a daily issue for over 600 children.

“We also carry water from home for the day,” Yadav said, adding that those who do not carry water from home share with other teachers. Due to the short supply of water, toilets built by the District Education Office (DEO) on the school premises have been padlocked. The students and teachers take to the jungle for the loo. “The short supply of water is the only problem we have,” said a little girl at the school. 

Meanwhile, female students in the school have been finding it tough to cope with the situation especially during their menstruation periods.

Like Bangesalla, most schools in the district share the same fate. “We did have a tap but it dried out,” said Mankumari Tamang, teacher at a local primary school. Tamang said that the possibility of the students to quench their thirst was out of question as local people in Pakarbas and Bhulwajor VDCs padlock their water taps. Tamang added that they had been providing water to the students by carrying water from some sources located at a distance.

While some schools have been facing problems due to lack of resources, others with water sources have not been able to tap into it due to fund crunch. Even though millions of rupees is allocated each year for the development of infrastructure, including school buildings and toilets, the DEO does not give a penny for the management of drinking water at schools. “We do not receive budget for the management of drinking water supply at schools,” District Education Officer Yubaraj Poudel claimed. He said schools should use their internal resources for the purpose.

The DEO provides funding to schools to construct toilets without taking into account their water supply. 

“The condition is such that if we were to look after the water resources and management in schools, most of the budget will have to be returned,” said Poudel, painting a grim picture of the state of affairs. Poudel who has inspected a lot of schools said the problem faced by schools in the district were beyond comprehension.