2.1.1 Location, History and Demographic Data

Patan city is one of the oldest city of Kathmandu Valley which is famous for its historical monuments, temples and old Durbars(Palace). Historically, the origin of Patan city dates back to six century. However, sculpture and ancient evidences show that the city's origin from second century. Previously Kathmandu Valley was divided into three Kingdoms; namely Kathmandu, Lalitpur (now Patan ) and Bhaktapur. These Kingdoms had their own King, culture, religion and festivals. Most of the basic services were commonly used by the community, for example. wells for drinking water, courtyards as meeting places and temples for various religious purposes. Most of these pubic entities were built during the rein of different Malla Kings. Existing famous temples, Durbar (Palace), step wells and courtyards constructed at that time can still be seen around the city .

Now, among the three municipalities of the Kathmandu Valley Lalitpur Municipality is one of them. Patan city which is rich in its cultural heritages and famous for its fine arts, lies within this municipality. Old Durbar square area of Patan is now a centre of attraction to tourists. Tourists come to this area to see magnificient architecture of temples and old patis.( a common platform).

Lalitpur municipality consists of 22 wards and each ward consists of many small toles

( neighborhood). Subahal is one of the tole lying in ward no 8 having around 1400 inhabitants. This ward has dense population with overwhelming majority of Newar ethnic group. with Newari as their mother tongue. Many of the inhabitants even can not speak Nepali( a national language) fluently. Map of the project area is provided in Annex -III

There is no database for current amount of waste generation in the Patan city. Therfore, total population and quantity of waste generation of Patan according to 1990 study, taken for reference is given below .

PATAN

Population 106000

- inner core area 25%

- outer core area 20%

- fringe area 55%

Annual growth rate of population 3.1%

Waste generation per day 106 cbm

Waste to be collected 65 cbm

2.1.2 Infrastructure Facilities

Old houses in the Subahal Tole and nearby toles are built in a clustered manner. Each Tole is about 70 -80 sq m in area. Near to Subahal Tole lies other Toles such as ; Dupat, Bhinchhebahal, Pilachhen, Tygyal and Dhalachhen. In an average, the total number of households in each tole is 150, mostly occupied by the owners. Nowadays, trend of constructing new houses is slowly increasing, however, old houses still exist. These old houses are made of mud and mortar, some of these have already decayed while some are in a collapsing stage. Many houses of the community are not directly linked by motorable roads. There are narrow streets and allies connecting to the a main road. the area suffered from poor drainage system. The streets, courtyards and ponds, wells ( hiti ) were full of solid wastes and human excreta. Most of them have no public water supply and rely on dwindling wells while the periphery of the wells were highly polluted by human and animal wastes.

2.1.3 Socio-economic Environment

The traditional Nepalese society has a joint family system . Being a traditional settlement most of the family in the area still live jointly with average family size being about 7-8. Although this city lies about only 5 km away from Kathmandu city, the capital of Nepal, the literacy rate here is low, with around 50 % of the population being literate. Among them, there are very few females who are literate. Overall the literacy rate is gradually increasing. The main occupation of these people was farming which is slowly replacing by other activities such as small businesses and labor for house construction. The reason behind shifting from their traditional profession to others is that nowadays, the agricultural occupation of traditional society could not generate extra income for housing and infrastructure improvement in the settlement area. With the urbanization, cost of living became unaffordable to the residents of this area. Average income per family ranges from Rs 1500 to Rs 3500 per month. However, getting the actual figure is difficult because people are reluctant to tell about their real income. Though farmers have dominant population every farmer do not own their own land, but they till the land of landowners. Some of the residents of this community despite having high income are living in less educational and low health and sanitation environment

The prevalence of caste system had a considerable bearing on housing segregation. Generally, same caste people live in same settlement building houses in cluster. The majority of the inhabitants of Patan are Newar sharing a common Newari language, culture and a community based lifestyle. Newars have a community approach. The ethnic and religion cultural homogeneity of the community made it possible to preserve rural attributes such as the community based lifestyle.

The inhabitants also show collective concern for the welfare of the community. Majority of the people follow Hinduism and very few are Buddhism. Newar community has a number of cultural and religious festivals. The local residential have strong belief on cultural norms. Most of the residential are affiliated with one or more Guthi (Trust) .Each trust has its own farm land as an asset. With a income from the land owned by Guthi they perform various community activities, festivals, Pujas and feasts.Another source of temple's income is cash offered by devotees in the name of GOD." Guthi " is a collective organization among a specific caste group which play a small role in public cleaning. They are more involved in maintaining temples day to day activities and cleaning its surroundings..The rising density of population after 1950 and infusion of ethnic groups with no urban history is making increasingly difficult for the residents of Kathmandu to know each other personally. Relatively less affected from the culture invasion is Patan and Bhaktapur, which has higher degree of homogeneity and its social organizations indicate less degree of impersonality while interacting among themselves. The inhabitants also show collective concern for the welfare of the community.

There are different organisations working in Patan for improving environmental condition in general, human development and socio -economic status of the communities. Before launching any program in the community, these organisations coordinate and discuss among each other about their program, activities to avoid duplication in selecting working areas and beneficiaries. But organised groups and NGOs dedicated only to solid waste management are still rare to find. Following are some of the environment, health and sanitation related programs undertaken by the different agencies in Patan:

It is an UNICEF assisted program, implemented through the Ministry of Local development (MLD) and municipalities. The basic aim of the UBS program is to raise the living condition of poor urban people in general, children and women in particular. It works towards community development and capacity building of relevant communities

The programme emphasizes human development issues such as education, health, water and sanitation, and income generation in the poorest of the poor communities of the municipality area. It builds and strengthens the capacity of the poor especially women to assess the development needs, plan activities to address the development needs and monitor activities in a participatory and cost effective manner.

In the context of deteriorating environment of urban areas the program, in 1993, UBS has initiated UBS program in municipalities of Nepal. Lalitpur municipality is one of them where the program has made relatively good impact. The program has proven that even the poorest of the poor have potential and willingness to carry out development works on their own if timely and appropriate support is provided. In 1995 UNICEF reduced its financial assistance and at present municipality is running the programme mainly with its own resources.

Inspired by the success of some social development work in the poor communities of Kathmandu, a noted social worker, Mr. Kiran Khadgi, established the Khumbeshwar school in 1983. The school was later transformed into a technical school. The main objective of the school is to improve the economic condition of the poorest of the poor.The school has proven that once the economic condition is improved , other improvement in terms of sanitary habits, eating habits, follow as a logical consequences.

Generally, the Podey community is socially and economically deprived. They are the sweepers and their status and income level in the society is low. The school has been working with this deprived community for more than 13 years. And, it has been successful in raising the living standard of the community by providing them with income generating skills and helping them to find employment.

The Urban Programme of the CDHP has the objective to improve the overall quality of life of the most marginalised section of the society by following an integrated community based approach. The program was initiated in 1985 in Patan. The program area is in the old city of Patan where most of the marginalised people of the town live. Before the program started, there was little awareness of health and environmental issues in the area. There were dark, unpaved lanes, solid waste blocked the streets and public wells. School attendance and literacy rates especially among girls and women was very low. In this context the program was initiated by the United Mission to Nepal with the involvement of communities. With the support of the program, the people have been able to improve the quality of their life

UDLE / GTZ - GTZ is one of the major donors in sanitation related activities in Nepal. GTZ's support to UDLE is in the form of its support to UDLE, a joint project between HMG/N and the German government. The project provides advisory and financial support for improvement of urban development and management. UDLE is based on the principle of decentralization and therefore recognizes the role of self-government. The UDLE's community development and participation of community groups appear to be minimal. In Patan, however, it has initiated community based approach through a CBO. Adequate community participation has been seen in this approach since community members and around one third women are involved in SHG.

MEIP Program is a program funded by the World Bank. The Tole Improvement Program under the subject Community environmental improvement and awareness, was implemented . It is similar to IPP which aimed for improvement of solid waste management situation in Teta Tole of Patan. It was particularly effective in the area of raising awareness on health, sanitation and its relation with haphazard solid waste management. The benefits of the project include; improvement in tole's environment, positive changes on people's attitude and behaviour towards the waste disposal.

2.2.1.Waste Disposal Practices

Old settlements in these areas of Patan were originally developed in such a way that there are many courtyards and Sagals (semi private garbage dumping areas provided for waste accumulation in traditional settlement),). The attractive architecture of inner courtyard is the social feature of the traditional settlement pattern of Kathmandu Valley. Slowly, the decline of the social structure was followed by its physical decay. They turned into private dumping sites. Eventually the sagal system was developed to dump the waste and produce compost fertilizer therein. In the past, the composition of wastes were mostly organic ( about 90% ) consisting kitchen wastes, crop wastes, cattle dung. Organic matters were observed within the natural process of decomposition or served as a animal feed. Dung of the animals (specially cows and buffaloe's dung ) is dried in the sun in a shape of small pieces of wood which are later used as fuel for cooking purpose. Especially human and animal waste has been used in agriculture sice many years.. Therefore traditional Nepalese did not consider waste as a social problem and the waste handling and disposal were organised through the natural and social system.

But nowadays, due to urbanization and industrialization purposes of wastes has been changed . Waste consists of inert materials, kitchen garbages, glasses and other non decomposable products. With the introduction of chemical fertilizer old practices of accumulating and converting manure into fertilizer is no longer continued. Farmland has also been occupied by new buildings and farming occupation is in diminishing stage but habit of piling up household wastes in sagals continued. This process further expanded garbage accumulation from sagals to courtyards. Due to this sagals and courtyards in the settlement contained huge amount of solid wastes, since many years. Consequently, Sagals and courtyards started to be breeding grounds for the pathogenic agents. The sewerage system and manholes in the courtyards didn't operate any more and the conditions deteriorated to such an extent that the sanitary, hygienic and environmental conditions in and around the courtyards became evidently harmful posing a threat to the health of the courtyard dwellers.

Caste system in the society led to division of work among the different caste group. Traditionally waste picking was the only task of 'Podey" , Sweeper class and were accepted by only a few social groups. They were more often looked down by the society for doing this type of job.With the change of time, people are changing this attitude and people from the other caste group has also started performing waste handling activities.

Nowadays in general, communities reflect wide spread concern for the environmental pollution of the area . The survey conducted by Kathmandu Regulatory Study Team, found a big gap in the environmental knowledge and practices between the old settlements and new settlements. It states that residents of old settlements are found to be more concerned about their community than the new one.

Before the programme was implemented in Subahal Tole , solid waste was managed in Subahal by the ward committee in the same manner as in all wards within the municipality. This involved the services of paid sweepers only, without any participation of the community. They practiced the most unsafe method of waste disposal, they threw it in the vacant land nearby or courtyards or sagals if there was none, the public street was the destination. Residents used to dispose of their garbage indiscriminately around the neighborhood in the belief that the municipal sweepers will somehow collect and dispose it of. The system was not efficient and the level of collection and disposal unsatisfactory. People used to defecate along the allies, open field, near to wells and streets. Very few houses had private toilets This was basically due to low awareness levels and low disposable income of the community.

The Patan programme emphasized on the involvement of the community based organization in SWM and work in close collaboration with the ward committee and the municipality. The result is that municipality collects and transport the solid waste from the area every alternate day effectively .On top of that the community members clean up the entire public area in their neighborhood every Saturday on voluntary basis and helps the municipality to collect and transport the solid waste. Beside this, to discourage people to defecate along the street and on open spaces of the community, people were encouraged to construct toilet by providing subsidy to those households which do not have toilets.It is the self help group members who raise awareness among the residents to keep their area clean and to dispose their garbages only when the municipality, tractor arrives. Huge amount of garbages from Sagals were cleaned up and sagals were rehabilitated. There were many houses without toilets and members of those houses used to defecate in the open spaces of the community therefore 41 private toilets were constructed. Sagals have been rehabilitated and voluntarily waste collection, street cleaning has been conducted in a regular basis.

The above programme has been replicated by the ward chairman in other wards as well and now gaining momentum to expand these activities in other parts of the town. Photographs showing past and present waste situation in the community is given in Annex - IV

Traditional street cleaning equipment includes short handed broom and bamboo baskets as waste carriers. Transportation of wastes is done by sweepers, carrying the baskets on their shoulders. This method of carrying wastes is traditional, inefficient and unhygienic and time consuming. With increasing size of cities, traditional means of waste transport are not sufficient any more but at some places this method is still practiced by sweepers.

Improved brooms with a longer handle allow higher efficiency. The IPP program introduced improvised wheel barrows to collect wastes. Nowadays, in Subahal a daily collection of wastes is done by using these barrows which could be operated by one person and it is narrow enough to fit through even in the narrowest allies and thus reaches even the core area of the community. Collected garbage is transferred from the wheel barrows or cart to a skip by Self help groups (SHGs )which then is transferred into a container at a transfer station. Ultimately, large waste quantities from transfer stations is then brought to the landfill site for final disposal.

A few household in the community use traditional method of composting which is unhygienic,( at times human and animal waste are used directly in the field). In this process a pit is digged and all type of day to day waste is thrown into it for composting without any further process. Time and again the waste heap is turned manually upside down for maturation.

Integrated Pilot Projects (IPPs) was started in 1992 as a component of the Patan Conservation and Development Program (PCDP) , a joint programme of Lalitpur Municipality and " Urban Development through Local Effort (UDLE/GTZ). The major objective of the project is to improve the living quality of the people of the neighborhood of Patan with linking the heritage conservation activities of PCDP. The PCDP comprises a number of different, but interrelated, components such as the preparation of a strategy plan, restoration and repair of monuments, improvement of streets and squares, documentation of cultural heritage, improving capabilities of partner organizations, generating public awareness and carrying out integrated pilot projects.

PCDP helped pioneer the strategy of achieving conservation through the promotions of participatory development initiatives of the local community of Patan. Solid waste management is a major activity conducted under the component of integrated pilot projects. In addition to solid waste management, the activities undertaken by the program include installation of individual toilets, street cleaning, rehabilitation of sagals and courtyards, sanitation and health education campaigns, eye and health care camps, informal education programs and skill development trainings.

IPPs started from a neighborhood known as Subahal in ward number 8 having nearly 1400 inhabitants. The encouraging achievement at Subahal stimulated the community of other wards and activities were replicated in all the toles of wards 7 and 8 and a few in wards 9 and 20. Now the programmes are being implemented in 24 different toles of ward 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 19 and 20. IPPs have been considered successful, which can be measured by overwhelming response from the community itself and increasing requests for such programmes from other communities too.

All the above mentioned activities are planned and implemented jointly by Lalitpur Municipality (LM) and the community based informal organisations with UDLE support. After having successful experiences in Subahal and considering the request of other wards and looking at the importance and potentiality of community participation in the development works, a need of separate Community Development Section (CDS) at LM was felt then both by LM and UDLE. The main purpose behind it is that the CDS gradually takes over all the community development works being conducted by UDLE . In establishment of CDS, UDLE offered the LM to provide with necessary support in office establishment, capacity building of the section and remuneration for the section staff. There is an agreement that in the first year 100 % cost will born by UDLE and will be reduced by 25% each year, after 4 successive years, LM will bear 100 % costs. LM, by accepting this offer has become a pioneer municipality in establishing a separate CDS to look after all community related task..

Activities of the CDS

Though PCDP project aim to work in Patan area, but it doesn't select wards or toles itself. With a believe that, successful projects need people 's participation or initiation, communities for the IPP project are selected by the PCDP committee upon the demands and initiation made by the people of the different communities. In this process, seeing the community people's interest toward the program, Subahal tole was selected as a first tole to carry out activities under IPP program. Mainly the project consist of two type of activities:

a) Community demand -driven and

b) Community support initiated

Community organizers of the PCDP visited the area for a series of time till they have to consult about community people's interest regarding the program, their felt need and problems in the community. The mass meeting was held where decision is made on whether or not to implement the program. Ward level office person , municipality representatives, youths of the community and other influential persons of the community who were interested about the programme were present at the meeting.

After reaching to a consensus on the need of the programme at Subahal community and programme approach, a local body called Tole Sudhar Sammittee (TSS) was formed with the responsibility of mobilising the community, approving and planning the project strategy and activities, supervising and monitoring the project. The member in the committee were drawn from among the target community, local leaders (ward office members) and Lalitpur Municipality.Their involvement was essential to draw upon local expertise and create local ownership.

Generally if there is any CBOs / SHG in the community, IPP only assists in strengthening / recognizing the group and implement the programme with the help of them. As there was no such existing group, at the mass meeting groups of youths were selected by participants present at the meeting to implement the programme. IPP provided support to organize the youth into a group The project provided the personality development as well as community development. trainings to the members of the group. After being well trained, the members became local community workers and thus established group called : Youth Self- Help Group. Later on they became a bridge between the IPP and the community. All kinds of works at community level were accomplished by this group. The total number of members in the SHG is 13, out of which 7 are male and 8 are female. It is headed by chairman. For financial sustainability of the program at present , they are carrying different fund raising activities such as: eye clinic campaign, conducting workshop etc.

After identification of the working partners (SHG), series of mass meetings were held in order to find out the most important issues related to community development and environment conservation of the peculiar neighborhoods. All the issues from all the sector of local population were collected and exercise of priority setting was done. In this process concerned PCDP members LM authorities, consultant PCDP , members of ward committee, TSS and SHG were involved Once the priority setting of different activities was completed , it is then community organizers (members of SHG), CDS staff and IPP staff together prepared the plan of operation for the implementation of the program.

A major achievement in the context of local institutional strengthening is the formation of Federation of these SHGs of different toles into a registered NGO which is called Self Help Group Society. This step has recently been taken. It is expected that for the time being IPP will help them in getting or generating funds to build on what has been initiated by the project so that in the future this society could help these SHGs.

In urban areas getting contacts with people is difficult. Nobody seems to be care for the others. If someone goes to the area and try to talk about the programme generally they show their doubtness and say that everyone comes but do nothing. Same case happened to the UDLE staff too. UDLE workers understood their reluctance which was risen from the people's past experiences. To deal the situation carefully and to build up the confidence of people, the working team looked for the best approach to enter into the community. They found out that the best way to convince about the programme to the people would be to identify some influential persons or leaders of the community to whom community people have much trust and listen to them.Therefore, project members approached these leaders of the area i.e. ward chairperson ( who is elected Chair member of the ward committee) before entering into the community. According to UDLE staff, in ward level, support of the concerned ward Cairman and other members was indispensable. They have found them cooperative which helped them a lot to run the programme smoothly and effectively. The chairperson, community representatives, LM authorities, project members all were involved from the planning to implementation stage of the program. Ward Committee members became a link between community, municipality and PCDP.

One of the major thrust of IPPs had been to build upon the experiences of the elder population, both male and female. They are considered as the resource tank that provide necessary input to the programme based on their experiences and observations made with different development processes. In traditional communities like the ones in Patan, those groups also hold a lot of influences within the communities. Many times no activities can be implemented without their consent. That is a sort of honor and respect they enjoy and of course also deserve for their contributions in the community feelings, be it traditional, cultural behavioral etc. Therefore, TSS was formed where representation from this elder group was done. Mainly their role in the community and the program was as decision makers and advisers.

In Nepal, as in other parts of the world, women are responsible for cleaning of the house and looking after her children. Her involvement in the program was necessary as she is the one who is responsible for daily domestic wastes disposal. Therefore while establishing the youth group, female were encouraged to be a member of the youth group so that it would be easier to motivate the other women in the community. Surprisingly, involvement and participation of female youth in selfhelp group was found more than expected. At Subahal, number of female members in self help group was higher than the male members. This program laid especial emphasis with

regard to awareness building for community women and provided different trainings because of the fact that women in this society are less educated. During the programme women 's participation was very enthusiastic. They attended most of the meetings and received trainings on different areas. They played key role on proper disposal of household wastes and their overwhelming participation in weekly street cleaning contributed a lot in making a community clean and making the program a success ..Women facilitators, fluent in local language were found useful to ensure consultation and motivation at the community level.

They are the future generation of any community. Educating orienting and involving them in the whole process of projects was considered very important . While planning the programmes, it was taken care that the children's interests are also addressed. Children of a community were organized into junior groups, thus making them exercise of working in groups right from their childhood. They participated in those activities which were suitable for them and in this way they were being prepared for better future environment. Children's participation in a weekly street cleaning program is highly appreciable.

Since youth generation is the most active and dynamic stratum of a community, IPPs involved them as one of their most important partners. Almost all the activities were conducted through those groups. They actually were the vehicles of IPPs that provided link between the projects and the communities. They motivated community to participate in the program and supervision and monitoring of the activities were also done by them. In a success of IPP project special credit goes to this group of the community.

The groups that played a major role in this particular IPP's SWM program are

UDLE - Initiated community based activities and provided technical and financial support to LM and community.

Municipality - Worked as a partner of UDLE and community and provided necessary support to the community.

Ward Committee - Ward members wereactively involved in planning to implementation of the program.

Tole Sudhar Samittee- Mainly acted as advisors and decision makers and were involved in planning and approving the project activities.

Self help Group- Main actors of the program, responsible for mobilising the community and actively participated in every activities of the program.

Individual Household member - Supported the activities of the program and actively took part in the improvement of solid waste management situation in the community.

On the motivational front, it is a sad reality that people were not fully aware of the relationship between health and sanitation. Old habits die hard, so a constant motivation campaign to increase awareness was necessary. However, this awareness cannot be achieved automatically. Intensive attention and motivation was needed for maximizing participation by informing the community about the health impact of improper management of solid waste. This was done by using available media and direct motivation measures. Special attention was given to women who are the most powerful change agent within the family context. Awareness activities at community meetings , social works gatherings were carried out to inform people about adverse impact of dirty environment.. In different public places such as Hiti , Courtyard small signboard are placed containing message (throwing waste is strictly prohibited) in local Newari language. Besides to this audio-visual programme, cultural programmes were shown to community members as motivational tools to raise awareness.

School Motivation

There is a saying that Children are raw mud whom can be moulded to desired shape.It is also applies in changing the behavior about health and sanitation starting from the childhood. The ability of a society to improve its living condition will not be fully utilised if the younger generation is excluded from the process of consciousness development. Without direct participation of children and adolescent in the responsibilities for their environment, it will not be possible to find solutions . In the long run, the young people in a community will be those who benefit most from the new development . Therefore learning material was developed to attract children's attention through games. Recycling of the plastics by children by making plastic cushions were tried out in some Toles of Patan (but not at Subahal Tole )which is still continuing in some areas. Effect of this teaching resulted in less amount of scattered plastics in the communities.

Trainings

Different types of trainings were organised as an incentive to the community members and group members for their voluntary participation in the program. Trainings were designed as per the demand and request from the community members. Most of the youths members were interested for personality development training, thus for them personality development trainings were conducted. Since most of women of this community were uneducated and low income group they were more interested in skill development and income generating activities , for them trainings were imparted on :

sewing

knitting

candle making

papad making (eatable product)

household level paper recycling etc. (Description of paper making process is given in Annex III

Many women benefitted from theses training. Most of the trained women have been able to use the skills to enhance their income.As most of the people in the community were illiterate. For them literacy classes were conducted. Till now, in Nepalese society is male dominated, women are given second priority to men in every aspect of life and opportunities for them are less available. For example, if a low income family has two children ( one male and one female ) and if he can afford to send only one child to a school , without second thought the male child is given the priority over to female child. In Nepalese conservative society parents usually forget that girl too has equal right for every opportunity and is also a part of a family, society and a nation. because of which female as compare to men in Nepalese society are way less privileged and way behind in all spheres of life. Educating them would definitely uplift their status and have a positive impact in the society. Therefore, various awareness sessions were organised for women on the importance of education, sanitation and health. They were also educated on the importance of girls education. for the development of the society. Chelibeti (Girls) classes were conducted for female children. The philosophy behind the Chelibeti classes was to provide literacy skills specially those female children who were not able to attend the school for financial, social and cultural reasons.

Besides giving trainings to this program participating members the youth groups were taken to field visits to the other districts of Nepal where they could see how the other municipalities and communities are managing solid wastes. Time to time, the achievement of these youth groups and community were carried by leading daily newspaper of Nepal which uplifted their pride, raised their spirit and enthusiasm to work for the community. Visit of the Prime Minister to the project area on the occasion of environment day on 5 June 1994 and recognizing their effort towards community development further raised community workers morale and from this other members of the community alsogot motivated to work for the community.

At the commencement of IPP, Self-help group, community organizer, CDS staff mobilized and motivated other members in the community and the children above 12 years of age to systematically organize regular street cleaning. PCDP/UDLE provided only necessary cleaning devices such as ; brushes, brooms, shovels, waste carriers etc. Cleaning was done voluntarily by the youths and children of the area. The frequency of the undertaking was decided upon by the self help group themselves depending upon their needs. Today, all Toles in the wards are cleaned weekly by these groups. The success of the street cleaning initiative can be readily seen by visiting the wards. However, attention has mostly focused on the main streets. Some inner lanes and courtyards still need to be included in the activity.

The same youth group mobilized a regular waste collection system. Initially this involved the use of bins ( half drums ) placed at strategic locations, into which domestic waste was placed by the residents of surrounding houses. Waste was then transferred to a collection point where municipal staff loaded it onto a municipal tractor to be carried to the disposal site.

For sometime, the absence of a proper sanitary landfill site, affected regular collection of waste by tractors and could not guaranteed by the municipality.At that time, the community responded by discontinuing the use of bins ( because they were overfilled ) in favour of retaining waste in the house until collection by tractor could be guaranteed. Waste would then be carried and dumped directly into the tractor, or onto the ground or the tractor collection point. During the initial stage of this system they hung a big bell in the middle of the Tole and when the municipality tractor arrives, they used to ring the bell indicating the households members to take out their garbage to dispose it into the tractor. Later on, people in the community developed a habit of throwing the garbage into a tractor or collection point and therefore later on it was felt that ringing of bell is no more necessary.

UDLE provided subsidy to those households which had no toilets in order to keep the community area clean. For this several meetings with the households without private toilets were organised by SHG and TSS with the support of the IPP consultants. At each meeting, the discussions used to consist on providing the participants to express the needs of the toilet, what and what they can do, what type of supports they need on PCDP behalf and design selection. The total toilet construction cost was estimated to be about Rs. 3747 out of which as to community's request, the PCDP agreed to provide technical and financial support of Rs 1800 at three installment. The beneficiaries were requested to fill the application forms with the certification of Ward Chairman or Chairman of TSS or Chairman of YSHG .Contribution of the beneficiary was more than 50% in terms of cash and kind. This activity was conducted under the supervision of youth groups, so far 41 private toilets construction completed in this particular community.

To improve the living environment of the residents and the community as a whole Sagals

have been rehabilitated. For this UDLE provided technical as well as financial support to municipality which in turn cleared the sites. In this activity concerned household member's contribution was to connect the sagal to the main sewerage which was also conducted under the supervision of youth groups. The following was the agreed procedure

- the sagal user households submit the application including the request form for the subsidy support, and recommendation by the ward chairman or SHG chairman for the rehabilitation

- the prerequisite to proceed the support are to fit the High density Poly Ethyhene (HDPE) pipe from their kitchen linking to the drainage at the sagal and cleaning the sagal waste

- the sagal users contribute all the labour and 10% of the total cost.

- the Lalitpur Municipality contribute 5 % of the total cost

- the PCDP provide all the remaining cost and technical support

Status of Sagal Rehabilitation at Subahal

It has been mentioned in the previous chapter that in Kathmandu Valley, most of the collection of recyclable materials are done by door to door waste collectors and scavengers. These people also visit each household of this community too and buy bottles, small pieces of irons, tins and papers. Due to lack of open land in the community ,practises of compost making out of wastes in a small or large scale is not common. And any initiation taken by individual, NGO or Government Organization towards the recycling activities or development of micro enterprises on solid wastes was also not observed. Wastes are thrown at collection point without separation at source.

Learning from the past mistakes of Bhaktapur Development Project (GTZ assisted project) which was conceived and executed without sufficient involvement of Nepal and without the participation of local people. This, Patan project involved members of the community in the implementation of the program. The project evolved its approaches through a participatory process. The project basically inducted youth of the community to mobilize the community. Local youths ( male and female ) were mobilized as volunteers who played a catalytic role in spreading the message.

The project used the participatory meetings to bring together government officials, NGOs and community leaders where they drew their vision of community management.

Mobilization and involvement of local youths as volunteers, especially in using them to play catalytic roles in the implementation of activities.

Several times meetings and interaction with communities and local NGO, leaders, volunteers, housewives and men were done. This was done from the inception of the project through to its completion, including the setting of priorities.

The program has been able to bring about changes in the following areas :

This IPP program was initiated in Subahal Tole in the year of 1992. With a continuous effort of the community members, youth group and community organizers and LM personnel, the program has become very successful. From the very beginning it has shown a effective and multiplier effect on other toles. After sometime , having seen the success of Subahal tole many other neighbouring tole also started requesting for such programmes and now the programme is officially launched in 24 toles of the Patan city and in some of the toles they have themselves initiated such activities without any support from the project. This programme has turned out to be an example for many other communities. Concerned people from other municipality also come to these areas to see the approaches and effect of the programme. Metropolitan Environment Improvement Program (MEIP) has also launched similar program in some other wards of LM.

The members of the Subahal community perceive the community as well as personal benefits from the program. According to them :

Despite all these impressive achievements there are some downsides to this project.

The programme as such is running smoothly at the moment but the major concern is the possibility to continue the activities after phasing out support from UDLE. Hence the major emphasis in the remaining time of this phase is developing a mechanism to make the programme sustainable so that it can be operated by CDS of Lalitpur Municipality in close collaboration with CBOs. The main participants within the community groups have been young energetic people who have been willing to dedicate their time on a voluntary basis. The older generation have not been so active in the field work and indeed have had to be persuaded to change their habits by the good example of their children. Sustainability is therefore highly dependent on volunteers which can not be assured for long term . Therefore the introduction of service charges for solid waste management is intended in order that organizers and staff can ultimately be paid appropriate salaries.

Basically it is extremely important to bring awareness among the community that they have to pay for the services that is being provided to them. In such a socio economic background of the community where majority of the people are agriculturists and have low income it is easier to receive labor contribution than collection of fees. For this PCDP is carrying out different activities such as ; Brainstorming, survey on the willingness to pay and ability to pay. From the studies made so far, most of the people has shown willingness to pay for the services if the services are reliable and timely. Further to this they are looking for other alternatives means to sort out financial problems of the community based solid waste management.

In this respect, IPP's present concern is how to make the programme sustainable after the phase out of the UDLE support. Therefore, recently they have conducted a evaluation in eight toles of Patan ( where program was launched) in order to assess the impact as well as people's perception regarding different activities. The evaluation was also meant to acertain their willingness and ability to pay the service charges to the management after the termination of UDLE support to program.

From the evaluation study conducted the following major results are observed

Most of the community members expressed their wish to continue the program by showing their willingness to contribute towards the program. More than 80% of the interviewees are ready to pay Rs 10-20 for the services provided by SHGs. Nevertheless, the amount which the community members were willing to pay in return to the services being provided by the SHG is not enough to sustain all activities of the program and on the other hand SHG felt that it would not be easy to raise funds from the community members regularly. Many of SHG members felt that with continued effort from their side, only the community solid waste management program can be continued after the phase out of UDLE support from Patan. For other activities such as toilet construction and sagal rehabilitation either LM or other support will be needed. Almost everybody perceived that income generating activities could be an incentive and alternative source of income to the volunteers and expressed that IPP should in future incorporate some kind of income generating schemes for the SHGs and their members for the continuation og the program..