MYAGDI: Residents of Beni Bazaar, the district headquarters of Myagdi, are facing a shortage of drinking water after floods and landslides damaged the supply pipeline earlier this month.

The damage caused by heavy rainfall and landslides in the second week of October has sharply reduced water supplies to the town, leaving residents struggling to meet their daily needs.

Ramesh Giri, Chairperson of the Beni Drinking Water and Sanitation Users’ Committee, shared that the town requires more than 20 litres of water per second, but the current supply has fallen to just eight litres per second.

The Committee supplies drinking water to around 25,000 people living in 1,200 households across wards 2, 7 and 8 of Beni municipality, he informed.

The rain-triggered disasters damaged a 14-kilometre pipeline that used to supply water from the Dandakharaka and Rithakharaka water spring sources in Annapurna rural municipality-8.

The pipeline, which previously supplied 22 to 25 litres of water per second, has been inoperative for a month.

With landslides threatening sections of the pipeline route at Khoriya and Khareni hill slopes in Beni, the Committee has begun laying a new three-kilometre pipeline along the Dallepipal-Kalipul-Beni Ring Road and Darbang Buspark area-to restore the supply.

As the existing system struggles to meet demand, residents of the Red Cross Marga in Beni Bazar have started fetching water from private water sources.

According to Giri, an estimated Rs 147 million is needed for immediate improvements to the water supply system while, he added, a long-term plan would require around Rs 700 million.

Last week, officials of Committee submitted a proposal to Minister for Infrastructure Development Sunil Lamsal, seeking funds to rebuild and upgrade the drinking water project.

Lamsal, who had visited Beni Bazar last week, had pledged to arrange the necessary budget and rebuild the Beni drinking water project through a contract-based process, the Committee said.