Supplying fresh water to Dhaka
Media reports showed sometime ago how thousands of gallons of water spew out uselessly from roadside taps in Dhaka city as their control valves were stolen by petty thieves. Surely, such thievery can be stopped from proper vigilance. But did anyone ever try? Very probably not.
Rain harvesting or catching the rains during wet months for storing in reservoirs and then using the same in the drier months, should be practiced. Many modern cities round the world get a big share of their waters for daily use in this manner. But this is yet to happen in Dhaka.
Already, fresh water supply for over 15 million residents of Dhaka city is posing as a problem. The city is found to be struggling always to match the demand with adequate supply. Needless to say, the present supply situation has considerably improved from boring new wells and lifting underground water. But this is risky and increases the threat of land subsidence and its consequences during earthquake.
A report in this paper--sometime ago-- stated that WASA aims to reduce its dependence on underground water from the present 87 per cent to 50 per cent in the next five years. But all rivers or sources of surface water flowing near Dhaka are found too contaminated by pollution. Therefore, waters from rivers which have relatively fresher waters such as Meghna and Brahmaputra, must be treated and then piped to Dhaka. This is an imperative.
Funds would be required for the purpose and the same may be sought from donor organizations like the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Government needs to be in closer communication with ADB and other donors to be able to line up the finances for such projects at the
earliest.
Sea water can be made into freshwater. The process is called desalination, and it is being used more and more around the world to provide people with needed freshwater. Time is ripe also to start considering the establishment of desalination plants in Bangladesh as our rivers are experiencing leaner and more polluted flows and it is proving to be too dangerous to encourage free style lifting of underground water for the land subsidence the same appears to be causing.
