SYLHET, Apr 10: The inhabitants of Sylhet city are suffering from shortage of water from the supply system as the underground water level had gone down recently.
Sylhet City Corporation (SCC) is able to supply half of the demand, and often one-third. This forced the inhabitants of different areas to take to the streets last week.
The SCC mayor assured of taking measures, but things did not improve much, locals said.
SCC sources said there was a daily demand of 80 million litres water against the present supply of 40 million litres.
A number of locals alleged that the SCC's water supply section officials were exhibiting utter negligence.
Besides, the SCC was unable to arrange water supply to the inhabitants of vast areas under the wards 25, 26 and 27, which had been included in the city years ago.
An official, however, claimed they had started work and that they had already laid down supply system for covering those areas.
The then Sylhet municipality (now SCC) set up a water treatment plant in Topkhana area and started water supply system in 1918.
Water collected from the nearby Surma river was treated for supplying through the pipelines.
Later, a large water treatment plant was established in the city suburb of Kushighat at a cost of Tk 1.32 billion.
It supplies 6.0 million litres a day now while the rest of the supply comes from the deep tube wells and the old plant.
Annoyed with the suspension of water supply for days, inhabitants of Jalalabad residential area took to the streets on April 05.
Locals said, same was the situation on the neighbouring areas.
The SCC mayor went there and assured of taking steps immediately. Temporarily supply would be made to the area through water carrying tankers, he said.
An official at the water section of SCC claimed the unauthorised connections at dwellings were the main cause of shortage.
"We can now supply about 50 million litres per daily whereas the genuine subscribers need about 45 million to 50 million litres", he claimed.
However, he admitted there was also a rising demand. Often water supply suffers due to load shedding. Besides the new water treatment plant cannot be operated up to its optimum level, the official added.
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