Safe drinking water is a basic human need. However, the residents of Satkhira's coastal areas are deprived of clean drinking water as many of them have to drink saline water. According to a UNDP survey, around 73 per cent people living in five coastal upazilas – Koyra, Dacope, Paikgachha of Khulna and Assasuni and Shyamnagar of Satkhira – have to drink unsafe saline water. Though the permissible salinity level in drinking water is 600-900 mg per litre, those people, on an average, consume water with salinity level between 1,427mg and 2,406mg per litre, reveals the survey.
Shyamnagar is one of the largest upazilas of Bangladesh. About 1,500-1,700 families live here. But people of this area have no access to clean and safe drinking water. There are some tubewells. But all of them contain saline water. In the dry season or winter, the salinity level of tubewell water in Shyamnagar goes up to 6,600mg per litre, more than six times the permissible limit. More alarming is the fact that there is no deep tube-well for people of this upazila. Some people buy water. But many cannot afford such water. Many spend more than two hours daily to collect drinking water. Sometimes, they need to go more than a kilometre to fetch water, either from a tube-well or a pond.
Drinking unsafe water can cause various waterborne diseases. There have already been notable health impacts, including high blood pressure, skin diseases, indigestion and diarrhoea among people of Shyamnagar. Therefore, we urge the authorities concerned to make arrangement for safe water for Shyamnagar people.
Abdullah Al Mamun,
Student of Department of Sociology,
Jagannath University, Dhaka,
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