Safe drinking water is one of the primary necessities for human beings to survive, live healthy life and to be productive.. Even though a lot of schemes are constructed in Ethiopia, communities are suffering from safe drinking water due to reliability and failure of of schemes... The main objective of this study is an assessment of the failures and reliability of rural water supply schemesin Ephrata and Bassona Woreda, in central Ethiopia. Quantitative data of schemes were collected, analyzed for selected water schemes in the two woredas. Community representatives were selected to fill questionnaires .A total of 280 (113 female and 167 male) were selected in the two woredas. The questionnaires consisted of issues such as community participation, presence of water committee, and women participation and functionality of water supply schemes. There are challenges to maintain the scheme and can operate the service. Rural water supply system affected by socio-economic factors that is income level, community cannot manage the scheme due to technology options. It needs higher machinery cause of failures, shortage of skilled manpower i.e artesian and caretakers for construction and maintenance, lack of spare was not available in the market, shortage of water supply and service delivery, was not immediate action to maintain the scheme, scheme is not residential, landscape to delivering services to scattered communities, population density over saturated with in short period of time in one scheme. Generally; the main problems observed in the existing water supply systems are poor design, poor construction, less community participation, poor operation and maintenance, user conflict and reliability factors. Key Words: Causes of failure, reliability, rural water supply schemes and Ephrata and Bassona Woreda.