Kathmandu, March 29:Water experts and concerned government officials today said that the knowledge gathered from the Hague conference on water should be materialised in the national context for the common good.

All the concerned individuals and organisations should forge consensus and have common vision to use water for public welfare, they said at a programme organised here today to share the experiences of the conference.

The Second Conference of World Water Forum was held in the Hague from March 17 to 22 with the theme “water for food, water for people and water for environment.”

“Amid the wilderness of multiple visions that have recently emerged into the global vogue, we have to seek for an oasis to resolve the potential conflict on the issue,” said the water experts and concerned government officials who represented Nepal in the conference.

They stressed on the joint participation of public and private sectors to make the fullest use of water for different purposes, including drinking, cleaning, irrigation, navigation, generating energy among others. “Nepal, one of the countries rich in water resources, has not been able to make much use of the vast stores of water because of the lack of participatory approach  to look at this issue,” they said.

People at the local level should be entrusted with the responsibilities of making and implementing policies on water to make it useful to the greater number of citizens, they said.

Stating the global conflict on the water issue, Water Expert at the Ministry of Water Resources Purna Bhadra Adiga said the Ministerial Declaration of the conference did not include ‘water use for energy,’ which is Nepal’s basic need. “We made it as a major intervention point and tried our best to enlist the issue into the agenda but all invain.”

Underground Water Expert at Royal Nepal Academy for Science and Technology Deepak Gyawali said that water management would be the greatest challenge in the coming years. He suggested that smaller resources should be considered before thinking of mega water projects like Melamchi.

Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Keshav Sthapit said that he would make all efforts to put knowledge into practice to solve the water problem of the city.

Dr. Mohan Man Sainju said that the concerned authority should think of the consenquences of water use before starting a project. He said that people’s experience at the local level would help the government to launch water project at much lower cost.