Letters to the editor
Search for fresh water
Sir,
The river systems of Bangladesh are becoming increasingly too polluted that reduces the opportunity to make greater use of surface water. Thus, the search for fresh water sources as alternatives must start in right earnest without wasting any precious time. Any lethargy in the matter will only confront the country with a further serious imbalance between demand and supply .
The planning and implementation process for augmenting fresh water supplies call for urgent reevaluation. It is high time to think of realistic planning--immediately--with an eye for the near future. The plans need to be drawn up swiftly and funds need to be mobilized as fast to start work on them for the country to avoid an awful crisis related to fresh water shortages even in the near future.
The scope for intensifying underground lifting of water, as noted, is very limited. Thus, alternatives must be considered and acted upon quickly. The water desalination plants designed to separate salt from sea water and then supplying the same for all kinds of uses as substitutes for fresh water, comes to mind in this connection. Such plants are already operating in many countries of the world and meeting large parts of their water requirements. The costs of building and running such plants are not so prohibitive either that a country like Bangladesh cannot afford them. Besides, the costs are also noted to be falling.
A lot of fresh water from rainfall during the monsoon months now goes to waste in Bangladesh. But water from rainfall can be preserved and utilized. This process is called water harvesting and is popular in many parts of the world whereas it is at nascent stages in Bangladesh .
Then, there is vast opportunity to increase fresh water availability by building the Ganges Barrage project. This project, on completion, can stop the dying effects of the river system in the south-west of the country by mainly storing waters of the monsoon seasons and then routing them into the rivers with lean flows during the dry season.
Iftekar Ahmed
Banani, Dhaka
Upgrading private universities
Sir,
It should be only logical to work for upgrading the standard in most of the private universities. There are over 50 such universities but most of them suffer from a poor image.
It was noted in the past that influential groups having powerful political connections were easily able to obtain licenses to set up universities . It needs careful consideration from the highest level whether this trend should be allowed to continue if the goal is truly not compromising with the quality of education.
A high powered committee of the UGC that went to work to ascertain the performance of private universities, gave a large number of them a period of five years to fulfill certain criterion to maintain their licenses .But it appears many of these bodies have not complied with the orders from the UGC or have done so only partially.
Qualitatively , except a few private universities, the teaching standard, the academic atmosphere and the worth of the degrees of the others are in doubt. But this lack of quality has not prevented them from charging relatively very high fees compared to the public universities.
The government should encourage the growth of private centres of higher education. But it must be much more serious about its regulatory functions. The formation of an accreditation council to rate the private universities for their standard and to disseminate its findings to students and guardians, is badly needed.
A K M Noorudin
Banani, Dhaka
