Speakers at a workshop on Thursday said there should be adequate measures for providing water supply and sanitation facilities for the slum dwellers to bring them out of the vicious circle of poverty. The number of such people is gradually increasing in the urban areas for various manmade and natural catastrophes and they need some necessary supports to mitigate their problems, they observed.
The observations came at the dissemination workshop styled ‘Action Research on Urban Poverty Reduction at Zianagar Slum in Rajshahi City’ held at Master Chef Conference hall in Rajshahi.
The Village Education Resource Centre organised the workshop to mark the presentation of findings of the action research in association with the Water Aid Bangladesh.
The VERC area coordinator, Tapan Kumar Shaha, said in his speech the VERC was putting out the best of its efforts by implementing water and sanitation programme in the slum areas.
The WatSan activities are being carried out in terms of distribution and promotion of latrine ring-slabs, installation of tube-wells for safe water use promotion with limited hygiene education for awareness rising.
Both the hardware items were distributed among the intervention area households at a subsidised rate and the approach was being practiced by the community people.
Rajshahi WASA managing director Dhirendra Nath Sarker and DPHE executive engineer Bahar Uddin Mridha addressed the programme as the chief and special guests respectively.
Rajshahi City Corporation ward councillors- Ruhul Amin and Tahera Begum and Rajshahi University teachers- Professor Niamul Bari, Professor Golam Mostofa and Dr Redwanur Rahman also spoke on the occasion.
The RU pro-vice-chancellor, Professor Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan, said supply of safe drinking water to the community peoples was very important to reduce urban poverty in the slum areas.
-With New Age input
