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Abstract:
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The technical and economic feasibility of the hand pumps for rural water supplies is not in doubt, and this can be substantiated by their well known advantages as compared to other water supplies. That is low initial investment cost, low operation and running cost, low maintenance cost, low cost per capita and assurance of supply of water even if one pump is out of order. However, experience shows that the communal use of hand pumps presents serious problems with regards to engineering design, guality of manufacture, installation and maintenance. As such this paper has drawn attention to operation and maintenance of hand pumps, which are installed on shallow wells, as practiced in Morogoro Region. In this case the paper will provide information on the existing maintenance system in Morogoro Region, with a light descriptive maintenance systems on some selected (visited) regions Shinyanga, Mwanza, Mtwara and Lindi; this has provided a basis for discussion and conclusions. It has been attempted to elucidate the practiced maintenance system with respect to organization set up, execution, physical and financial aspects, transportation and manpower assessment. With all this the paper tries to emphasize that hand pumps should have minimum maintenance at low cost, and should be acceptable to the users, with a working programme which requires satisfactory relationship between users, technology and institutional structure. Even though a wise pump design may prevent many difficulties, but regular and proper maintenance is the key to a reliable pumpperformance. /Kir09 |