WASA offer in Capital: 16pc water not clean

Authority says in own report, identifies fifty seven areas obtaining contaminated water

New News52 Correspondent |
12:00 AM, May 17, 2019 /
LAST MODIFIED: 02:13 AM, May 17, 2019

File Photo

A month when self-praise concerning its water quality, Dhaka Wasa yesterday disclosed that its water is contaminated in fifty seven town areas due to broken-down offer lines.

The official water provider within the town created the admission during a report submitted before the court.

The authorities and rural development ministry submitted the report on behalf of Wasa, as per the court’s order on weekday.

The Wasa sent the report, supported consumers’ allegations, to the ministry the identical day.

The report same the Wasa would take a look at the water of these areas at the laboratories of Dhaka University, Buet, and icddr,b.

The development comes but a month when Wasa administrator Taqsem A Khan claimed that Wasa water “is one hundred pc pure,” whereas conjointly admitting that generally he himself boils the water at his home.

Wasa has since been struggling type the general public, the media and therefore the court.

After receiving the report, the HC bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Md Khairul Alam asked professor Sabita Rizwana Rahman, head of Dhaka University’s biological science department, to seem before the court on might twenty one to administer her knowledgeable opinion on a way to take a look at Wasa water simply.

“It is that the duty of the Wasa administrator to provide pure water to people’s homes,” the court same, in response to a petition filed last year.

The HC is anticipated to issue additional orders on the matter on might twenty one.

Contacted yesterday, the Wasa MD claimed their water was “100 p.c pure” at supply, however some sixteen p.c of it gets contaminated within the provision lines that are in dangerous form at several places.

Asked concerning his earlier claim about the standard of Wasa water, he same it had been a slip to mention that Wasa water was utterly safe and pure from supply to consumers’ homes.

With 3.74 large integer connections in its 360sqkm place in Dhaka town and Narayanganj, Wasa provides 240 large integer litres of water daily. Of this, twenty two p.c is surface water taken from rivers and treated and therefore the rest is extracted from underground with 900 deep tube wells.

This water is delivered to town dwellers’ homes through a network of sixty,000km offer lines -- thirty six,000km of that are derelict 150-year-old pipes. So far, some 24,000km of the network has been replaced, officers same.

City dwellers have long complained that the worn-out Wasa offer lines are accountable for rampant water contamination in several areas.

Asked concerning their latest report, the Wasa MD same the list was ready supported “isolated” complaints from households.

A random sample take a look at last year showed forty p.c water gets contaminated when reaching non-public reservoirs, he said.

“It isn't that water in a complete space is contaminated. Rather, solely one or two of shoppers in a locality complain of contamination,” he said, adding that they were operating to exchange the run-down offer lines in phases.

Earlier on Apr seventeen, the Transparency International East Pakistan printed its year-long study, that found that ninety one p.c Wasa subscribers should boil the provision water to form it drinkable and, within the method, they burn gas price Tk 332 large integer a year.

Its findings conjointly show {that nearly|that almost|that just concerning} forty five p.c subscribers don't get the required quantity of water whereas about thirty five percent complain of poor-quality water throughout the year.

On Apr twenty, the Wasa MD had publically challenged the report, oral communication the TIB claims were unwarranted.

But once some previous Dhaka residents took position in his workplace the following day and demanded that he drink the provision water, he refused to try and do therefore.

Meanwhile, the LGRD ministry submitted a report back to the HC on might eight, oral communication it shaped a four-member committee to check Wasa water.

The court ordered the ministry to make such a committee in Gregorian calendar month last year, following a instrument petition.

The petition was filed in Gregorian calendar month last year when The Daily Star ran a report on the standard of Wasa water.

The report, supported a World Bank study, said E. coli contamination was found in eighty p.c of the menage water across the country.