WASA desperate on tapping surface water from rivers

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Fazlur Rahman
The government is seeking for funds to help Dhaka WASA implement a raft of its plans in order to alleviate the persistent water crisis as well as improve water quality in the capital, officials said.
Dhaka WASA, which supplies running water to the residents in the capital and its neighbourhoods, said most of the planned projects aim to cut down age-old reliance on underground sources and shift to those on the surface.
Currently, underground aquifers supply around 87 per cent of the capital's daily requirements of 2.20 billion litres of water, while the rest comes from sources mainly in the adjoining rivers, said WASA managing director (MD) Taqsem A Khan.
WASA officials said the work on the Sayedabad Plant will be inaugurated by this month. The plant, which will cost Tk 8.29 billion, is expected to be ready for supplying water by June 2012 and it, once completed, will supply 225 million litres a day.
The Danish government is providing Tk 6.34 billion and the government of Bangladesh will provide Tk 1.95 billion to implement the project, which is expected to narrow the current demand-supply gap of 300 million litres.
Under the project, a pre-treatment plant will also be set up on the bank of the river Shitalakhya. After pre-treating, the water will be sent to Sayedabad plant where further treatment will be conducted to improve the quality of the water, officials said.
Experts also suggested moving to surface water sources to rid the capital of the worsening water crisis.
Ainun Nishat, senior adviser, Climate Change, Asia region of IUCN, said the water situation in the capital has been dragging on for many years.
"For the last 20 years we have been urging the water authorities not to set up any tubewells as the water layers have fallen and reached a saturated level. But they have not paid attention to our demands," the water expert said.