The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) has proposed to increase water tariff once again by five per cent amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the proposal, residential users will have to pay Tk 15.18 per unit of water (100,00 litres) in place of Tk 14.46 and commercial users Tk 42 instead of Tk 40. At the beginning of the pandemic in April last year, WASA increased the price of water for households by Tk 2.89 per unit. Therefore, it is assumed that the price would not be hiked this year as the pandemic had severely hampered livelihoods.
Since the Awami League came to power in 2009, the price of water has surged 13 times in 13 years. This time, if the proposal to increase the price is approved, the price of water will have increased 14 times in all. Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in April last year revealed through a research that more than one third of the consumers are dissatisfied with the service of Dhaka WASA. Due to the poor quality of water, 93 per cent consumers treat water through various methods to make it drinkable. Among them, 91 per cent people drink boiled water.
Dhaka WASA said it would go for an increase in the price of water again in line with instructions from the government for adjustment of production cost of water following the price hike of gas and electricity.
The Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), a consumer rights organization, differed from the WASA’s stand saying many people have lost their jobs because of the pandemic and many businesses are not doing well. In such circumstances, increasing the price of water is inhumane.
We believe before hiking the water tariff, it is necessary to ensure good governance in Dhaka WASA to bring down costs by curbing irregularities and corruption in processes such as procurement, project implementation and metre readings. And the most noteworthy is to cut illegal connections from which WASA gets no revenue at all.
