Children enjoy playing with water in one of the villages taking part in the Bridge Asia Japan project. Pic: Bridge Asia Japan

THE Japan-based non-government organisation Bridge Asia Japan has supplied more than 300,000 villagers in Mandalay and Magwe divisions with safe water in the past eight years, said an official from the organisation.

“Our Secure Water Supply Project in the Dry Zone has completed drilling 92 tube wells and renovating 177 old tube wells in the townships of Nyaung Oo, Taungthar and Kyaukpadaung in Mandalay Division, and Chauk in Magwe Division,” said Ms Akiko Mori, the program manager of the project.

She said the organisation started the project in 1999 to eliminate water shortages faced by people living in Myanmar’s central dry zone, which averages less than 750 millimetres (29.5 inches) of rainfall a year.

“About 320,000 people rely on our tube wells for drinking, cooking, washing clothes and feeding animals,” Ms Mori said.

“When the ponds dry up in summer, people in some villages have to go up to six miles to the nearest water source, such as a creek or river,” said U Maung Maung Lay, the project administrator.

“Now they can get water at their own village year-round,” Ms Mori said. “They can save time and money on fetching water and they can spend more time at their workplace than before. So their income is increasing.”

She said the cleaner water has also reduced the incidence of eye and skin diseases, as well as diarrhoea, among villagers.

Some villages have also benefited from the establishment of micro-credit systems using money earned from selling water.

U Maung Maung Lay explained that according to such schemes, the village water committee organised to maintain the tube well sells water for K100 a barrel.

“They use the money to buy the diesel needed to pump the water from the well. With the leftover money they provided loans to villagers at a two or three percent interest rate,” he said.

To help facilitate long-term water supplies, Bridge Asia Japan regularly organises technical trainings and information-sharing workshops for water committee members in villages where tube wells are installed.

The project is mainly funded by the Japanese government with additional help from England, Australia and several NGOs. Villages that want tube wells are required to apply to Bridge Asia Japan’s regional office in Kyaukbadaug in Mandalay Division.