Water crisis in Khulna city has turned for worse with the summer heat continuing to intensify for the last few days. Khulna Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (KWASA) supplies only 11crore 10 lakh litres of water per day against a demand for 24 crore for 15 lakh people, who lived in 31 wards under eight police stations. The rest 13 crore litres is being harvested by hand-driven tube wells and motorised water pumps owned by city dwellers. City dwellers have already fallen in grip of water crisis as groundwater level is gradually dropping. Besides, hand-driven tube wells are of no use if groundwater level drops below 26 feet and motor pumps do not function if the level drops below 30 feet, said Deputy Managing Director of Kwasa Md Kamal Uddin. The areas suffering the most include fall under Daulatpur, Khalishpur and Khanjahan Ali police stations. Long queues of people are often seen at water sources, especially around the vehicles of KWASA providing mobile service.
Through the water authority was formally inaugurated on March 5, 2008, it started functioning independently on September 16, 2008 with 130 permanent and 128 temporary staff taken from the Khulna City Corporation (KCC). According to KWASA officials, there are 83 production tube wells, 227 kilometres long pipelines and about 15,412 water connections in the city covering an area of 46 square kilometres. Besides, there are about 3,748 deep tube-wells and 5,532 shallow ones under Khulna WASA in the city supply water through pipelines for the subscribers. And so, a good number of city dwellers have to depend on other sources including ponds of water. Meanwhile, residents of different areas alleged that the water shortage is caused by a large number of illegal water connections in the city. They said that previously, the low-income group living along the banks of the rivers Rupsha and Bhairab used to utilise the river water for their domestic purposes. But, since the water of the rivers has become extremely saline, the residents have been using the KWASA supply water, putting more pressure on the supply, they further said. It is learnt that the lone Surface Water Treatment Plant could not become operational for the past ten years due to technical faults. Convener of Khulna Nagarik Samaj and freedom fighter Advocate AFM Mohsin said that people of many areas have been suffering from skin diseases and intestinal disorders by using contaminated water being supplied through the defective pipelines, as many of them have developed leakages, he added.
Shamim Arefin, Executive Director, of An Organisation for Socio-Economic Development (AOSED), a Khulna based NGO, working for safe drinking water in the region pointed out that underground water level in Khulna city had fallen by 33 feet during dry season last year. He said that the situation will further worsen this year due to lack of adequate rainfall. Managing Director of KWASA Md Abdullah blamed the fall in the ground water level as well as frequent power outages for the water crisis in the city during this season. He said that KWASA has under taken a Tk 2,558 crore ‘Khulna Water Supply Project’ that has already got approval from the Executive Committee of National Economic Council for implementation financed by JICA and ADB.
Under this gigantic project, water will be brought through pipelines from Madhumati River in Mollahat upazila of Bagerhat district to Shamantashena in Rupsha upazila of Khulna district. The water brought from Madhumati River will be purified at the water treatment plant at Shamantashena and supplied through pipelines to the subscribers of Khulna city. The proposed water supply project includes installation of 700 kilometres of pipeline, said the MD. At least 75,000 subscribers will get benefit of water supply with implementation of this project which is expected to be completed by 2017, the Managing Director Md Abdullah further said.