Staff Reporter :Transparency and accountability in Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) and Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) should work to ensure safe drinking water for the city residents, especially for the slum people.Lack of transparency and accountability are absent in DWASA and BWDB, said TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman. Talking to The New Nation, the TIB Executive Director said, DWASA and BWDB are the sources of pure drinking water in the city. “It is very unfortunate that they are failing to ensure drinking water for all”, he said.Both the institutions lack initiative to fulfil their commitments, he said. The service of DWASA differs considering the socio-economic status of the citizens.DWASA officials and political figures control the water supply in the city’s slum areas. “The policies, laws, projects and their implementations are incoherent and backward”, claimed Iftekharuzzaman. These should be reformed. According to the sources, there are about five million people in 3,400 slums in the capital. The DWASA has given 2,174 water supply connections in 375 slums.The low income communities (LICs) have to pay money to get rationed water from slum leaders having political influence and doing brisk business stealing water from DWASA supply lines. Moreover, DWASA is also deprived of huge revenue earnings as these slums are depending on illegal water connections.DWASA Managing Director Taqsem A Khan has said that recently the DWASA had signed a MoU with NGO Forum to ensure water supply and improve sanitation and hygiene services in a coordinated way for the urban poor living in the slums in Dhaka and Narayanganj cities. “Actually, it is a very challenging job to ensure supply of safe water and sewerage services, including sanitation for the huge number of slum dwellers, but now, we have decided to supply water and other facilities to slums through NGOs,” said the DWASA Managing Director.Experts opined that the government needs to take practicable steps to ensure the wellbeing of slum dwellers by making it sure that they have free access not only to fresh water, but also to education, health, habitat, food and sanitation. Most importantly, they said, the authorities need to take punitive measures against these unscrupulous slum leaders and corrupt DWASA officials who are engaged in illegal water supply business and thus robbing slum people of their hard earned money. Conscious sections of society in general and democratically-oriented people in particular also need to raise their voices against this unholy nexus between the slum leaders having political influence and the corrupt DWASA officials, they further opined.
