RCC plans to sell bottled water as treatment plants lie idle

The Rajshahi City Corporation has planned to sell bottled water by using all of its four idle water treatment plants when the city’s one-third population, mostly poor, are out of its water supply network.
The RCC circulated a notice on March 2 in this regard, seeking proposals from interested persons and organisations for implementing the plan under a public-private partnership scheme, RCC sources said.
Under the scheme, the city corporation will install modern machines at the water treatment plants to purify water, which will be marketed in bottles, said RCC chief engineer Sirajum Munir.
The official also said the RCC had taken the plan as the four water treatment plants had remained idle since 2006.
The city corporation now supplies water directly to around two-thirds of its population through pipeline after extracting groundwater using pumps.
Under a project of the Public Health Engineering Department, the water treatment plants were constructed at a cost of Tk 22 crore during the tenure of the previous BNP-led alliance government for supplying pure drinking water in the city through pipeline.
Official sources said operation of the water treatment plants remained suspended since 2006 as no alternative pipelines had been set up to supply the purified water.
‘Around Tk 12 lakh is needed per year for treating water at the plants. But pure water mixes with untreated water when it is supplied through the same pipeline of untreated water,’ said the RCC chief engineer.
According to the RCC records, 5.77 lakh people out of 7.50 lakh city dwellers are provided with water. Of the total population, 69 per cent are provided water through pipelines while 20 per cent get water from tube-wells and the rest 11 per cent from open water sources. But according to an unofficial count, around 10 lakh people are now living in the city.
The city corporation can now supply 710 lakh litres of water daily against the city’s daily demand for 1,030 lakh litres.
The corporation has earned Tk 386.15 lakh from the water sector in the 2007-08 fiscal against its annual expenditure of Tk 300.12 lakh during the same period.
‘The corporation has plans for expanding its water supply network. The public-private partnership scheme has been undertaken for making good use of the water treatment plants,’ said an RCC official.
Commenting on the RCC move, Jamat Khan, convener of Rajshahi Rakkha Sangram Parishad, a platform of cross-section of people, said bottled water would remain out of the poor people’s reach even if it is sold out at lower price.
‘The corporation must try to supply pure water to all without any discrimination,’ he said, adding that the quality of water supplied by the RCC was not also satisfactory.

Courtesy of NewAgebd