Rim Villages Get Tap Water 11.4 Hours a Day, TSU Survey Finds; District Pledges Tank

KORGONCHO — Households in Korgoncho, Sopol-Tepa and Kyzyl-Oktyabr receive tap water for an average of 11.4 hours a day, according to a household survey by hydrologists of Talas State University, well short of the round-the-clock supply promised when the Korgoncho Rural Water Supply Scheme was finished in 2021.

The team, led by Dr Bermet Asylova, questioned about 640 households across the three villages of Lower Naryn District in October. The scheme was paid for by a foreign development partner's grant with co-financing from the Rural Development Fund, and the survey confirms that the pumping stations and pipe network do what they were built to do. The weak point is storage: the tank was built to about 60 per cent of its design volume, so the pumps cannot bank water for the evening peak, when most families cook and wash.

"The pipes are sound and the water is clean enough to reach thousands of homes that had none at the tap before 2021," Dr Asylova said. "But the wells are recharged by the Naryn-fed irrigation canals of the farm belt. When the canal rota is tight, or the pumps lose power, there is no tank deep enough to carry the villages through."

Residents describe the pattern in plain terms. "We fill the buckets at five in the afternoon, because after that the tap may go dry," said Dilfuza Yoldasheva, a nurse in Sopol-Tepa.

Alisher Kholmatov, head of the Lower Naryn District administration, said the district would pay to complete the tank in its 2027 budget, which goes to the Mejlis this month. "The scheme works, and it serves many families. We will finish what was left unfinished," he said. Two questions remain open: the donor's closing report on the project has not been completed, and the contractor's handover papers have yet to be reconciled with the tank as built. Mr Kholmatov said his office would ask for both.

The survey touches the Naryn water rota, which is due for renewal in 2027, though it proposes no change to any rule, schedule or office. For the government, the finished tank would be another step in the Lieutenant Governor's push to bring reliable services to the villages of the rim.