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]]>According to managing director of Khulna WASA Md Abdullah, about 15 lakh city dwellers are being supplied with 4.9 crore litres of water against the daily demand for 24 crore litres of water.
The crisis may further deepen, he apprehended.
According to the executive engineer of Khulna WASA Md Rezaul Islam, there are 80 large production wells, 227 kilometre pipelines and 15,000 water connections in the city covering an area of 47 square kilometres.
Besides, there are 3,748 deep tube wells and 5,532 shallow ones under the Khulna WASA that also supply water to the city subscribers, he said.
Many subscribers have alleged that most of water pumps, owned by the Khulna WASA, are outdated and go out of order frequently.
WASA takes long time to get these pumps repaired from Dhaka as it is not possible in Khulna, they added.
Managing director Md Abdullah blamed frequent load shedding of electricity and fluctuation in voltage for the pumps going out of order very often.
‘We are going to buy 40 new pumps in a bid to address the crisis of water,’ he said.
There are allegations that illegal water connections are also among the reasons behind water crisis in the city.
Underground water level in the city has fallen by about 35 feet during dry season, said Shamim Arefin, executive director of a Khulna-based NGO working on safe drinking water.
Besides these reasons, the surface water treatment plant in Khulna has been lying inoperative for the past ten years because of technical fault, which is also contributing to the existing water crisis.
Managing director of the regional utility agency said the Asian Development Bank would provide soft loan of $75 million for implementation of a potable water facility project for the Khulna city dwellers.
Implementation of the project is expected to be completed by 2017 with a view to ensuring improved access to safe water, he added.
newagebd
-with New Age input
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]]>bad to worse here with the onset of summer.
Scarcity of pure drinking water amid extreme heat is making life of the townspeople unbearable and the situation is getting worse gradually.Every day, people are seen waiting in long queues to collect water in various places.
In most areas, Sylhet City Corporation does not supply water more than one or two hours.
On the other hand, there are some areas where water is not supplied even for once in a day.
City corporation sources said per day demand of water in the city is 50 cubic feet according to the population but the supply of water is less than half.
Besides, due to fall in groundwater level, water cannot be lifted in many areas through deep tube-wells.
The city corporation is supplying water under ‘Nine Town Project’ taken up in 2002.
City dwellers alleged that most of the 13 pumps under the project are of low capacity.
Due to non-installation of high power modern pumps, the problem of water for the city dweller is not getting resolved.
The city corporation sources said the ‘Nine Town Project’ had been initiated for supplying water for only two lakh people.
But at present, the city population has increased to seven lakh.
Executive engineer Syed Hossain Zaman of the water supply section of SCC admitted that they could not supply water at present as per the requirement of the city dwellers.
He said work is on to implement a project named ‘Sylhet-Barisal Water Supply Project.’
Under the project, the authorities will install 14 deep tube-wells and set up two water treatment plants at a cost of Tk105 crore.
Twelve tube-wells have already been installed and two separate water treatment plants are being set up in south Surma, he added.
Work on the project is scheduled to be completed within the next six months, he hoped and said this will help ease the water crisis to a great extent.
In recent time, the residents experienced serious water crisis in different areas including at Barutkhana, Mirabazar, Kumarpara, Upashahar, Dargah Mohalla, Darshan Deuri, Danriapara, Mirzajangal, Shahieidgah, Sheikhghat, Ponitula, Bagbari, Chalibandar, Manipuri Rajbari, Ambarkhana Barobazaar, Shibganj Lakripara, Sen Para, Sobhanighat, Mendibag and Subid Bazaar.
Sakila Akhtar, a resident of Shibganj, said they face acute water crisis almost every day, which hampers cooking and their other household chores.
Sima Roy of Dargahpara said they are not getting water in time for long.
Recently, the problem has become more severe, she added.
Teacher Pradip Bhattacharjee of Danriapara said since the establishment of the city corporation in 2002 the water problem has not been resolved.
‘As city dwellers, we are forced to buy water,’ he lamented.
Mentionable, the city corporation has four water tanks.
Of the four, three were constructed in 2002 at a cost of Tk29 crore but these tanks can contain only five lakh gallons of water.
The three tanks are located at PTI School, Shahi Eidgah and MC College field.
In the past 10 years, the city corporation could not supply water to these tanks.
Another tank located in the old medical college area was set up in 1967.
Jamal Ahmad, councilor of ward No 16, said the water crisis will further deepen with the increase in heat.
Due to load shedding they cannot reserve water.
He said alternative arrangement must have to be made from now on.
Sylhet City Corporation mayor Badruddin Ahmad Qamran said a project is being implemented to resolve the problem of water.
-with New Age input
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]]>Five million poorest slum dwellers in the capital pay 1o times more than the official price of Dhaka Wasa water, said its former managing at a discussion yesterday.
Bangladesh Water Integrity Network organised the discussion on transparency and integrity in water supply in Dhaka city at Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management in the city’s New Eskaton.
People in the slums have no legal water supply connections and some unscrupulous middlemen collect water from legal connections to sell it in the slums, said Dr Khondker Azharul Haque, former managing director of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa).
A middleman makes a monthly profit of Tk 40, 000 with a single illegal line while Dhaka slums have thousands of such unauthorised water connections, he told the meeting.
The water supplier suffers 30 percent production loss every year and one percent of the loss costs the company a damage of Tk 4.5 crore, said Azhar.
Metre tampering by dishonest customers with the connivance of corrupt Wasa employees is one of the key reasons behind the huge production loss, popularly known as system loss, he pointed out.
The former MD attributed Wasa’s defective supply system to corruption in project implementation and service delivery and lack of competent manpower.
He suggested ensuring oversight and effective autonomy to make Wasa a transparent service provider.
Dr M Inamul Haque, executive director of Institute of Water and Environment, said Wasa had to supply 2100 million litres of safe water for 21 million people in a 360-square kilometre area of Dhaka and Narayanganj cities.
Its treatment plant at Pagla of Narayanganj can treat only eight percent of 2 million cubic metre of human sewage generated by the residents of the two cities daily, he added.
The rest of the sewage is directly released into water bodies through wetlands.
Quamrul Alam Chowdhury, deputy managing director of Dhaka Wasa, said 88 percent of the organisation’s total production comes from 621 deep tube wells while the rest comes from surface water.
Pollution in the rivers around Dhaka, lack of Wasa’s sewage treatment plants and septic tanks at private houses remain major obstacles to shifting to surface water sources for producing water, he mentioned.
Water Resources Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen said his ministry is carrying out a 162-km river dredging project from Jamuna to Dhaleswari to increase the flow of water in the Buriganga, Turag and Bangshai rivers.
Dr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, moderated the discussion.
-With The Daily Star input
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]]>Chittagong city will face a deeper water crisis from April when demand for water is projected to peak to a level three times the water supplying authorities are able to supply.
The crisis is already unbearable with Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) supplying just around 200 million litres of water per day against a demand for 500 to 550 million litres.
The authorities said beginning from April, the demand will go up by another 100 million litres.
This means, city dwellers cannot expect to get water supply daily or even once in three days. Based on their last year’s experience, some city dwellers said they might get water supply once in 10 days.
Wasa officials said this situation was created by the negligence of successive governments to set up new water treatment plants in pace with the city’s population growth.
Chittagong Wasa Managing Director (MD) AKM Fazlullah said there is no way to avoid the water crisis this summer. But in the future, implementation of two projects will improve the situation.
“It will take another three to four years to decrease the gap between supply and demand. The crisis will come under control with the completion of the Karnaphuli Water Supply Project in Pomra in 2014, and Chittagong Water Supply Improvement and Sanitation Project in Modunaghat area in 2015,” he noted.
The two schemes will pump in an additional 226 million litres of water per day — increasing daily water supply level to 426 million litres. The existing crisis will ease, but there will still be a good gap between demand and supply.
To deal with the crisis, the Wasa chief said he sent two proposals to the government for two more new water treatment plants, and both of those are likely to be approved.
“Since 1988, successive governments did not take any initiative to set up water supply projects. Chittagong Wasa has been running haphazardly for a long time. This pushed the agency into a deep crisis,” the MD said.
To make the ongoing crisis worse, the existing deep tubewells that produce more than a half of the daily water supply are regularly under-performing due to various technical problems including power supply disruptions.
Little less than a half of the city’s water is supplied from surface water by Mohora plant at Modunaghat.
Wasa Chief Engineer Abdul Karim Chowdhury told The Daily Star that this year they took preparations to overcome the technical problems related to deep tubewell operation. To ensure continuous power supply to 55 deep tubewell stations, Wasa obtained exclusive power line from the Power Development Board. Besides, they are keeping alternate power generators as backup for 20 deep tubewells.
City dwellers meanwhile are utterly frustrated living without a basic amenity like water. “There are times when we did not get any water supply for up to 15 days,” said Rita Chowdhury of Jaynagar in Chawkbazar area.
She said in normal times Wasa supplies water for three days in a week. “But during summer, they provide us with water once in 10 days. And this continues for at least four months beginning in April,” she added.
In such a dire situation, how does she cope with the need for water for drinking, cooking and washing? “We have to use the same water twice a day for washing things, being fully aware how unhygienic this can be,” Rita said.
“For drinking and cooking, we have to buy bottled water.” She said they informed Wasa several times about the problem, but did not get any satisfactory answer from them. She also complained about the paid water truck service, saying the service is too hard to get.
Bukghona area resident Imtiaz Uddin Chowdhury said though their area is very close to the Wasa head office, they also face water crisis. He said some residents of that area, who are economically better off, set up deep tubewells at their houses. But people who have been using the supply lines of Wasa have been suffering from water crisis during summer. As they do not get the supply water, they have to go to other people’s houses that have deep tubewells to get water, Imtiaz added.
It is not only a crisis in Chwakbazar and Bukghona areas, but also a problem all over the city.
-With The Daily Star input
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]]>Acute water shortage has gripped many parts of the capital despite promises of smooth water supply from the authority during Ramadan.
Residents from several areas have complained that there has been barely any water in their taps for the last few days.
“Imagine my despair when I opened the tap to wash myself for the prayer after sehri last night [Tuesday early morning] and not a drop came out,” said Anwar Hossain, a Mohakhali resident.
The supply resumed around 10:00am on Tuesday, only to stop an hour later.
Areas hit hard by the crisis include Gulshan, Uttara, Lalbagh, Khilgaon, Hazaribagh, parts of Mirpur and Mohammadpur, central Badda, Shewrapara, Paikpara, Kalabagan, Naya Paltan, parts of Moghbazar and Basabo.
According to Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) sources, demand for water has suddenly shot up due to scorching heat and rising humidity.
They say the demand tends to be high during the dry season, which usually extends from March to May. The current scarcity was created by inadequate rain and some dried up surface water sources over the last month.
At present, the demand is around 250 crore litres compared to the usual demand of around 225 crore litres every day, a Wasa official said.
The production, on the other hand, remains between 205 and 210 crore litres, which has gone down over the last few days as many Wasa pumps could not run due to load shedding, the official added.
As a result, there is a daily shortage of at least 40 crore litres in the city. Frequent power cuts have only worsened the problem.
“There is no water for taking a shower, so I’m practically drowning in my own sweat,” said Jahid Kamal, a private university student from Uttara.
In his area, he adds, water comes once or twice for about an hour during daytime. Things have been like this for one week.
Ahead of Ramadan, Wasa promised a number of initiatives to ensure smooth water supply throughout the month.
Its promised initiatives included speedy availability of water tanks and trolleys, plastic water tanks in public places, 24-hour complaint service and special generators to keep its pumps running during power cuts.
However, most of the initiatives remain unimplemented and unavailable to the Dhaka dwellers.
“I called the local Wasa office to complain about the water crisis several times over the last week, but nobody answered the phone,” said Bashir Uddin, a resident of Uttara sector-16.
Some residents from Azampur, Basabo, Madartek, and old town also complained about filthy water that reeked of sewers.
Wasa officials said they have 590 water pumps, which meet around 90 percent demand of the water in the city.
The other 10 percent is produced through four water treatment plants, using water from the adjacent rivers.
However, more than 300 pumps remained non-functional over the last few days due to power shortage. When electricity was available, voltage was too low to power the pumps, they added.
-With The Daily Star input
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]]>Jharna Tripura, 24, said she would have to wait for more than an hour to fill all the four of her pitchers with drinking water from a small shallow well at the foot of a hill in Tongthak Para – about five kilometres off the district headquarters.
Then it will take her at least two hours to carry the water to their hilltop home as she has to travel more than a kilometre twice with two pitchers at a time.
Like Jharna, eight to 10 girls and women, including Ukrachi, a student of Class VIII, and Anuchi Marma, a student of Class III, were waiting patiently about 5:30pm on Saturday around the three feet deep open well in which water was being replenished slowly but steadily.
They have to walk along a muddy path on a steep hill with the water pots on their heads.
‘I am worried whether I will be able to get water home before the sun sets as you know it is very risky to walk along the steep path on the hill,’ Jharna, wife of a day-labourer, told New Age.
‘All the girls and women have to take the risk every day, as the men remain busy with other work,’ she added.
Anuchi said she came to the well twice a day to collect drinking water. Locals believe the quality of water of these open wells is good in the dry season but the water gets contaminated during the monsoon and the muddy paths on the hills also become dangerous.
Forty-six families live at Tongthak Para in Parachari union under Khagrachari Sadar upazila. The people in the area face an acute water crisis in around March and April as most of the tube wells do not function and even the waterfalls go dry due to depletion in the water table, which many think is caused by deforestation in the hill district – home to a number of indigenous peoples.
Hill peoples in other remote upazilas like Dighinala, Matiranga, Panchari, Manikchari, and Ramgarh face a similar water crisis in the lean season, when the water level goes down. During this period they either depend on waterfalls or small holes created by the waterfalls at the feet of the hills.
Asked about the water crisis, Khagrachari Hill District Council chairman Kuzendra Lal Tripura said around 70 per cent of the people there had access to sanitation. ‘But there was a crisis of safe water in some remote areas, including Dighinala and Laksmichari,’ he added.
The council is responsible for overall coordination of all development activities in the hill district.
The executive engineer of the department of health engineering at Khagrachari, Sohrab Hossain, admitted that most of the ring-wells and tube-wells mostly provided by the DPHE became dysfunctional in March to April.
Water from open wells is not safe for drinking as it may contain bacteria, he added.
Md Rafiqul Islam, a health officer at Khagrachari Sadar Hospital, said diarrhoea and typhoid were common diseases in the remote upazilas. ‘We have an increased number of diarrhoea patients from Dighinala. Usually in February, the disease in some areas spread like an epidemic,’ he added.
Dighinala upazila parishad chairman Dharma Bir confirmed that hundreds of people in the remote upazila suffer from diarrhoea and other water-born diseases due to insufficient access to safe drinking water.
He said the upazila had a lone 11-bed health complex with four doctors for 1,40,000 people.
There are also 11 community clinics, where some health workers provide primary health services to the people, he added.
The upazila chairman said the water crisis had become particularly acute with the River Maini becoming almost dead.
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]]>City dwellers allege scarcity of water has hit them early this year.
Apart from the scarcity, the Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) is supplying water, which bears pungent smell, garbage and human waste posing serious health hazards for city people.
Residents of Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Shewrapara, Kazipara, Paikpara, Kalabagan, Nayapaltan, Khilgaon, Lalbag, Islambag, Nawabpur, Hajaribag and some parts of Moghbazar and Basabo allege that they have been facing acute water crisis over the past few days.
Similarly, inhabitants at Gulshan, Dhanmondi, Badda, Rampura and Bonoshri are going through severe water shortage, which has much worsened over the recent days.
People in Moghbazar were seen standing in a long queue to collect water being supplied by Wasa, as crisis has turned acute over the last few days.
Pikepara residents in the capital’s Mirpur are also suffering badly. They are queuing up for the same reason since the area has been experiencing sever water crisis for more than half a month.
Rabiul Hasan, a resident in Badda area, said, “We have been facing water crisis over half a month. The supplied water that we are getting in few and far between is also stinky.”
“There is nothing for us but to use this contaminated water for bathing and cooking, which poses risk to public health,” he added.
“When we make complaint to Wasa, concerned officials tell us to buy water purifier. Stinky and dirty water are a great problem to us,” he added.
Shibo Kanti Das, a resident in Islambag area, said water crisis has already reached its peak prior to the start of summer season.
“We are greatly worried about what would happen during the upcoming dry season,” he added.
Trash and excreta are frequently found in the supply water in which stinky smell is very much common, he added.
Asked about water crisis, Taqsem A Khan, Wasa managing Director, said water crisis has hit the city residents a bit early this year due to frequent load shedding and rapid fall in groundwater level.
There is hardly any chance to get rid of this crisis until next year, he added.
Acknowledging Wasa water as stinky, Taqsem said overuse of chlorine for water purification causes such smell.
Since Shitallakya River’s water is extremely contaminated, more chemicals are needed to clean it, he added.
The existing pumps of Wasa fail to cope with such a high-powered job of drawing water due to lack of sufficient generators necessary to produce electricity, the Wasa official said.
Steps had been taken last year to purchase 200 generators, but they are in bureaucratic tangle with the concerned ministry, said Taqsem.
At present 175 crore litres of water against a daily demand of 217 is being supplied by Wasa.
The authority has 570 deep tube wells in the city to supply water in order to mitigate water crisis, but those are not functioning properly due to power shortage, said a Wasa official.
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Bangladesh is blessed with suitable soil and climate for growing rice in all three crop seasons in a year. Rice grown during summer is locally known as Aus, during monsoon as Aman and during winter as Boro. The Boro is really the improved rice variety that is cultivated in almost all rice fields during winter. Winter rice is typically called Boro but is now cultivated in other seasons too. Gradual expansion of improved rice farming contributed much to total rice production increasing more than three times over the last three decades. The winter rice farming was a demand-led adoption by all types of farmers because of its higher productivity and it being produced in dry season almost in risk-free environment.The development of mechanised irrigation system is considered as a key driving force for the development of this irrigated rice farming. In its early stage of adoption, winter rice occupied relatively more fertile soils relocating many winter crops to less fertile soils. Subsequently, it removed pulses, oilseeds and many other winter crops from many areas. Meanwhile, winter rice spread to three-forth of cultivated area in the winter, making up 54 percent of total rice production in the country.
Rice farming will remain occupying almost 75 percent of total crop area in 20 years ahead, as estimated from a trend analysis. Total crop area here is the sum of cultivated area in different crop seasons within a year. The cultivated area will continue to decrease because it being used for urbanisation and due to land-loss from river and coastal erosions. There is no room of increasing the total crop area because of natural barriers in multiple uses of many cultivated areas. In the year 2030, the rice farming will occupy 9.7 million hectares, which is lower than 11.2 million hectares at present. Even with a decrease in total crop area, a higher production is expected to be achieved because of technological improvement over time.
Rice yield is estimated at 4.5 metric tons (milled-rice) per hectare for the year 2030, which is 2.5 metric tons at present and this higher yield is achievable even under probable threats from climate change. Meanwhile, rice researchers have released disaster and salinity tolerant varieties yielding up to 4.5 metric tons per hectare. Moreover, Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2008 put emphasis on development of climate resilient cropping system. It is calculated that the country will produce 44 million metric tons rice in year 2030, against its requirement of 41 million metric tons to maintain current intake of 205 kilogram per person. It is to point out that current intake of rice is much higher than body requirement of 185 kilogram cereals that include rice, wheat and other grains.
The country uses 38 billion cubic meters water for producing winter rice at the rate of 1.9 cubic meters per kilogram. Recently, about 15 billion cubic meters is withdrawn from groundwater and the rest comes from surface water, soil moistures and atmospheres. If the same trend of rice farming continues, the winter rice production will reach 24 million metric tons and require 46 billion cubic meters water to produce in year 2030.
Meanwhile, the winter rice farming created huge pressure on groundwater, contributing 70 percent of total irrigation requirement which will reach at 91 percent in year 2030. The withdrawal of groundwater will relatively be higher under gradual lower contribution of surface water as water bodies would get dried. Winter rice farming will require 24 billion cubic meters of groundwater notifying an excess withdrawal of 9 billion cubic meters in 20 years hence. Incessant withdrawal of groundwater has appeared as threat visible from cracks on surface in northern region and from arsenic contamination in south-central part of the country. The groundwater stock is limited to only 23 billion cubic meters. Notwithstanding the fact that under-stream downward flow also contributes to groundwater stock, it would not contribute in future because of lifting groundwater almost everywhere.
Yet 44 percent of groundwater is economically non-viable for irrigation as reported by WARPO. Under this situation, required withdrawal will be higher than its withdraw-able stock during winter or dry season.
On-going concentration of rice farming will produce 44 metric tons in year 2030, but will require 37 million metric tons to produce for a balanced intake in the same year. Rather achieving an over-production at the cost of scarce water, some areas can be saved from rice farming over the next 20 years. In this journey, no excess water will be required for winter rice production and 8 billion cubic meters water can be saved from changing food habit. Moreover, gradual spread of Boro rice varieties during monsoon season can yield water-intensive rice in water abundant condition. The areas saved from winter rice faming can be brought back to other less water-intensive and diversified crops farming.
Earlier crop diversification efforts were not successful because the government incentives on irrigation, research and extension services were devoted to rice farming. However, it is necessary to reduce concentration on winter rice and to diversify crops with low water-intensive farming of oilseed, spices, potato and vegetables. Meanwhile, agricultural policies introduced demand-led extension service inspiring farmers to go for commercially important farming. It is a good news that vegetables grown earlier in winter has spread over all crop seasons and production also increased sharply.
Unless creating alternative demand for non-rice crops, any endeavour for reduction of rice and expansion of non-rice farming will not be effective. Now vegetables offer higher financial return compared to winter rice because of its higher price from higher demand. In the process of shifting toward non-rice crop farming, effective measures are necessary (i) to persuade people towards a balanced food habit, (ii) to diversify dishes from existing rice-curry based ones, (iii) to motivate children in primary education towards non-rice food, and (iv) to facilitate farmers with incentive for farming non-rice crops. A journey towards a balanced food basket thus can contribute to reduce concentration on rice farming, to expand non-rice crop farming and to achieve a water-efficient food production system in Bangladesh.
Dr. Aminul Islam Akanda is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, American International University-Bangladesh, Dhaka
Original article on The Daily Star
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