Kathmandu, Jan. 22 – Participants at a one-day workshop on “RETA 5922: Regulatory Systems and Networking of Water Supply and Regulatory Bodies” held here today focussed on the need of a regulatory to improve water supply. They agreed on maintaining the service standards.

They also extensively held discussions about factors such as tariff, autonomy of the body, funding, legal framework, among others.

Organised by the Ministry of Physical Planning and Work (MPPW), it was aimed at collecting inputs from the stakeholders on how to effectively implement the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) regional technical assistance (RETA) in promoting reforms in the water supply and sanitation (WSS).

According to the organisers, the specific objective of RETA is to assist the Development Member Countries (DMCs) is establishing regulatory bodies for the sector. Nepal has also been selected as one of the DMCs to be actively involved in this exercise.

At the workshop, H.L. Regmi, Secretary at MPPW, D.B. Shrestha, Joint Secretary at MPPW and RETA Country Director, S.S. Shrestha. Director General at the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage Management, D.C. Pyakurel, Executive Director of MWSDB and R.K. Siddhi spoke about the need to effectively support reforms in the water supply and sanitation sector.