Water woes

Wai! It’s surprising that many Bhutanese towns are facing an acute shortage of water. It’s surprising because Bhutan is richly endowed with natural resources, particularly water, which gurgles down the hillsides in the form of sparkling streams. Our drinking water supply doesn’t involve huge costs in pumping, sedimentation, desalination and treatment like in some countries. We simply collect pure surface water in a reservoir and pipe it for distribution. That’s why, the water that flows through our taps is sometimes barely fit for domestic use. Still we charge residents for this.

Samdrupjongkhar town, for instance, barely has enough water for minimum domestic use. Water comes to homes for barely two hours a day. And Samdrupjongkhar is not a huge town. And the residents are not demanding water that is drinkable straight from the tap. We don’t know where the problem lies, but the shortage of drinking (but muddy) water in Bhutan is a big irony.

And in many parts of Thimphu city, shortage – or rather scarcity – of water is still a daily challenge.

If we don’t fix this problem now, the growing towns will face ever-increasing water shortage, and our authorities will continue to advocate lesser and lesser use of water. As they say, a town without adequate food, water and security is not a good town.

We need to advocate economical use of water among the town residents, but that advocacy should come when water supply that’s meant to be enough is not enough. When enough water doesn’t flow through the taps, advocating economical use of water doesn’t make sense.