THE New Nation on Tuesday published a lead photo that showed the miseries of ordinary people at Harishchandra Road in the city’s Bangla Bazar area due to scarcity of drinking water. Dozens of empty jars and pots were also seen kept piled up to take water from a single DWASA pipe. Anyone can easily imagine how much time people have to spend to get a small quantity of water.
There is an idiom in English language that a picture is worth a thousand words. Actually, this photo also tells more things about the real condition of water supply in the capital by the DWASA.
Though DWASA recently has claimed that they were prepared to tackle the high demand of water during the summer time, in reality the scenario is totally different. We fear, there will be scarcity of water during this summer as well as Ramzan, the month of fasting in the Islamic calendar. It’s a very common and also a regular practice of DWASA to keep some parts of Dhaka under acute water shortage during the aforesaid period. Usually, the demand for water rises during those times.
Apart from it, contaminated water flow through DWASA pipe lines is another big problem which people have to face often. The High Court on November last year formed a five-member committee to examine the quality of water supplied by DWASA, and submit a report in two months. The committee includes representatives from LGRD Ministry, BUET, ICDDR,B, Biological Sciences and Pharmacy Faculties of DU. The HC passed the order following the World Bank report that said E coli contamination was found in the country’s 80 percent of household tap water.
So far we know, 40 per cent of slum dwellers in Dhaka still don’t get enough DWASA water as the authorities still couldn’t bring total capital under its service network. But water is very much needed to them during summer and the demand will increase in Ramzan month. Taking the vast demand under active consideration, the DWASA should take preparations from now.
