Augmenting water supply in Dhaka city
A recent newspaper photograph showed how thousands of gallons of water spew out uselessly from roadside taps as their control valves have been 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 rainfall during the wet months 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 formidable demand. According to statistic provided by WASA, demand for fresh water in Dhaka city is about 2.25 billion liters per. The demand for water in the city is projected to rise to almost double at 5 billion liters per day from the consequences of rapid migration of people to it by 2020. Therefore, the existing plans for increasing water supply by WASA need to be implemented in time. 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. This is for the obvious reasons of the risks involved in reckless lifting of underground water causing dangerous land subsidence and the fast falling level of underground water. 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 sources to be able to line up the finances for these 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. Bangladesh should start knocking at the doors of the World Bank and other donors to line up funds for the early establishment of such desalination plants.
