Water, woes and ways
as water in this case); sustainability w | Saturday, 2 April 2011
as water in this case); sustainability w
finally, close monitoring and supervision is needed to avert free riding and adverse selection, writes Abdul Bayes There is a proverb: water, water everywhere but not a single drop to drink. In our early lessons in economics in the university, water was cited as an example of a "free good" flowing heavily by the courtesy of the nature. Children play in ponds, fishermen fish in paddy fields, vast seas and oceans - all indicate to supply exceeding demand. But in this 21st century, none would possibly pin hope on that. Economics text books had to revisit earlier stance in the wake of water becoming the scarcest commodity. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that water could be the greatest constraint to overall development of the human society in the years to come. Bangladesh is already having a pinch of that - both for production and consumption purposes. In the following paragraphs, we shall look into an attempt to ameliorate the problems arising out of the scarcity of drinking water. This case study could possibly be cast as a replica for pursuing the model elsewhere. From 15 km north of Bogra Sadar lies Rainagar union. Almost all of villages under this union were faced with fierce problems of pure water - filled with iron and arsenic contamination. A cursory comparison of the parameters between actual and recommended shows that drinking water there, was dreadful to make lives of the people always dreary. It was thus no surprise that most of the households were griped by water panic with heavy tolls on human productivity. The irony is that people had money - as business activity seems to be the dominant occupation - but there were no options available. Meantime, Bangladesh received a grant from the International Development Association (IDA) for the Bangladesh Water Supply Programme Project (BWSPP), and intended to apply a part of that proceeds of the grant payments under contracts to build pipe water supply systems in about 300 villages and growth centers in rural areas. Thus, as one of the feasible and sustainable technological options to provide arsenic safe drinking water in villages and growth centers in pipe water, BWSS had started a programme to implement building of pipe water supply systems in villages through private sponsor. BWSPP and Dhribo - local NGO famous for serving socio-economic uplift of the poor - signed a grant agreement for construction and operation of Nimpara Piped Water Supply Scheme under the aegis of IDA grant in 2009. Within two years, the production well was installed according to data received from test by recommended institutions. The drilling was done by using appropriate suitable equipment and using the most common and indigenous method of well drilling i.e. the water jet system of drilling. There were two production wells averaging a depth of 50 meters. Development of the production well was undertaken adequately by a compressor after 48 hours of installation until water was found to be clean and free from sand, turbidity and other impurities. But when water was tested, all parameters except iron, barium and manganese were found within the Bangladesh drinking water limit. For example, in terms of water quality parameters, the concentration of iron was 6.9 mg as against Bangladesh standard of 0.3-1.0 and WHO guideline values for drinking water of 0.3; Manganese was at 1.0 against 0.1 and 0.4 respectively and Barium at 27ppb against 10ppb. To address the problems of excess barium and manganese, a treatment plant had to be set up in Nimpara village under piped water supply scheme. It is interesting to find that there are three sources of funds - of around Tk. 16 million - for this project comprising two deep tube wells, one treatment plant, 10 kin mainline and 6"-4" pipe production lines: IDA/World Bank, 75%, NGO Dhrubo, 15% and local community 15%. While the technical part was taken care of by the World Bank with collaboration from BWSPP and Directorate of Public Health and Engineering (DPHE), the onus lay on Dhrubo to organize people, educate and ready them for a payment for pure drinking water. It is no wonder that faced with the woes of water, people of that locality gladly accepted the conditionality. The line charge was fixed at Tk.3000 (multiple connections) and Tk. 2500 for single connection. The monthly tariff was fixed at Tk. 140 and 120 respectively. Thus 1000 households are receiving pure drinking water, from a total capacity of 55000 liters. The beauty of the project is that all charges are fixed by the representatives of the community through dialogues and deliberations with agencies concerned. In fact, people of the locality are at the heart of the whole programme. They agreed on getting water supply three times of two-hour duration each day. The story suggests that people's participation is a must in project designing, maintenance and meeting costs to make a project live up to its life-time. Economic use of resources could only be ensured by making people feel that subsidy is at best a short-run solution to the scarcity problems (such as water in this case); sustainability would hinge on how much people are willing to share the costs of production and distribution. And finally, close monitoring and supervision is needed to avert free riding and adverse selection. Abdul Bayes is a Professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University. He can be reached at e-mail: abdulbayes@yahoo. com
finally, close monitoring and supervision is needed to avert free riding and adverse selection, writes Abdul Bayes There is a proverb: water, water everywhere but not a single drop to drink. In our early lessons in economics in the university, water was cited as an example of a "free good" flowing heavily by the courtesy of the nature. Children play in ponds, fishermen fish in paddy fields, vast seas and oceans - all indicate to supply exceeding demand. But in this 21st century, none would possibly pin hope on that. Economics text books had to revisit earlier stance in the wake of water becoming the scarcest commodity. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that water could be the greatest constraint to overall development of the human society in the years to come. Bangladesh is already having a pinch of that - both for production and consumption purposes. In the following paragraphs, we shall look into an attempt to ameliorate the problems arising out of the scarcity of drinking water. This case study could possibly be cast as a replica for pursuing the model elsewhere. From 15 km north of Bogra Sadar lies Rainagar union. Almost all of villages under this union were faced with fierce problems of pure water - filled with iron and arsenic contamination. A cursory comparison of the parameters between actual and recommended shows that drinking water there, was dreadful to make lives of the people always dreary. It was thus no surprise that most of the households were griped by water panic with heavy tolls on human productivity. The irony is that people had money - as business activity seems to be the dominant occupation - but there were no options available. Meantime, Bangladesh received a grant from the International Development Association (IDA) for the Bangladesh Water Supply Programme Project (BWSPP), and intended to apply a part of that proceeds of the grant payments under contracts to build pipe water supply systems in about 300 villages and growth centers in rural areas. Thus, as one of the feasible and sustainable technological options to provide arsenic safe drinking water in villages and growth centers in pipe water, BWSS had started a programme to implement building of pipe water supply systems in villages through private sponsor. BWSPP and Dhribo - local NGO famous for serving socio-economic uplift of the poor - signed a grant agreement for construction and operation of Nimpara Piped Water Supply Scheme under the aegis of IDA grant in 2009. Within two years, the production well was installed according to data received from test by recommended institutions. The drilling was done by using appropriate suitable equipment and using the most common and indigenous method of well drilling i.e. the water jet system of drilling. There were two production wells averaging a depth of 50 meters. Development of the production well was undertaken adequately by a compressor after 48 hours of installation until water was found to be clean and free from sand, turbidity and other impurities. But when water was tested, all parameters except iron, barium and manganese were found within the Bangladesh drinking water limit. For example, in terms of water quality parameters, the concentration of iron was 6.9 mg as against Bangladesh standard of 0.3-1.0 and WHO guideline values for drinking water of 0.3; Manganese was at 1.0 against 0.1 and 0.4 respectively and Barium at 27ppb against 10ppb. To address the problems of excess barium and manganese, a treatment plant had to be set up in Nimpara village under piped water supply scheme. It is interesting to find that there are three sources of funds - of around Tk. 16 million - for this project comprising two deep tube wells, one treatment plant, 10 kin mainline and 6"-4" pipe production lines: IDA/World Bank, 75%, NGO Dhrubo, 15% and local community 15%. While the technical part was taken care of by the World Bank with collaboration from BWSPP and Directorate of Public Health and Engineering (DPHE), the onus lay on Dhrubo to organize people, educate and ready them for a payment for pure drinking water. It is no wonder that faced with the woes of water, people of that locality gladly accepted the conditionality. The line charge was fixed at Tk.3000 (multiple connections) and Tk. 2500 for single connection. The monthly tariff was fixed at Tk. 140 and 120 respectively. Thus 1000 households are receiving pure drinking water, from a total capacity of 55000 liters. The beauty of the project is that all charges are fixed by the representatives of the community through dialogues and deliberations with agencies concerned. In fact, people of the locality are at the heart of the whole programme. They agreed on getting water supply three times of two-hour duration each day. The story suggests that people's participation is a must in project designing, maintenance and meeting costs to make a project live up to its life-time. Economic use of resources could only be ensured by making people feel that subsidy is at best a short-run solution to the scarcity problems (such as water in this case); sustainability would hinge on how much people are willing to share the costs of production and distribution. And finally, close monitoring and supervision is needed to avert free riding and adverse selection. Abdul Bayes is a Professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University. He can be reached at e-mail: abdulbayes@yahoo. com