2 crore people still out of safe water coverage

Desk Report
Awami League government has failed to ensure safe drinking water for the country’s entire population even seven years after the timeline they had pledged, with salinity and arsenic still remaining major challenges.
The party in its election manifesto before the parliamentary polls in 2008 had promised to ensure safe drinking water for all by 2011 and it reiterated the pledge in its manifesto ahead 2014 general election.
Department of Public Health Engineering chief engineer Md Moniruzzaman claims that 87 per cent people of the country can access safe drinking water considering availability of water within 150 metres.
The government, as the statistics shows, is yet to ensure safe drinking water for more than two crore people.
DPHE high officials say that all in the country drink safe water but some have to spend more time to collect it while others have to pay high for water.
They blame the crisis on unavailability of water source in the salinity- and arsenic-prone districts.
Civil engineering professor emeritus M Feroze Ahmed says that over seven crore people are out of safely managed water coverage after Bangladesh adopted SDG goals.
Water Aid Bangladesh country director Md Khairul Islam informs that over 40 lakh people are still out of basic water coverage due to salinity, arsenic contamination and poor water supply network.
Though the government has mitigated arsenic contamination, he says, salinity increased over vast area of country’s 19 costal districts including Khulna, Satkhira, Patuakhali, Barguna and Bagerhat.
Water resource and climate change specialist emeritus professor Ainun Nishat blames climate change for the salinity affecting new areas of the country.
He mentions that the man who earns Tk 200 as day labour has to spend Tk 20 for water every day while salinity is spreading, intensifying water crisis for more people.
‘Salinity not only creates challenge for water but also affects agriculture and health of millions of people, forcing mass migration,’ he points out.
DPHE former chief engineer Sudhir Kumar Ghosh claims that arsenic contamination has dropped from 23 per cent area in 1993 to 12 per cent in 2014.
Referring to multiple indicator cluster survey, in short MICS, by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and Unicef, he says that 1.90 million people living in 61 districts including Cumilla, Chadpur, Gopalganj, Munshiganj and Faridpur are still at risk of arsenic contamination.
The World Bank report in 2016 said that 22 per cent tube-wells of the country had arsenic contamination.
World Health Organisation and Unicef jointly monitor water and sanitation situation under their joint monitoring programme, in short JMP, all over the world.
DPHE superintending engineer Md Saifur Rahman mentions that the JMP report in 2015 said the country’s safe water coverage was 87 per cent according to millennium development goals but in the JMP report in 2017 the definition of safe water changed to safely managed water according to SDG and its coverage stands at 56 per cent.
People suffer for drinking water mostly in urban areas, especially in the capital city.
In Dhaka, people suffer as Dhaka WASA supplies dirty water in many areas and sometimes no water for hours.
University student Tanvir Hasan says that people living at Jatrabari have to buy drinking water from vendor spending Tk 900 per month as Dhaka WASA supplies dirty water in their area.
Dhaka WASA director AKM Shahid Uddin claims that they supply 100 per cent safe water but it gets contaminated either in pipeline or water reserves of consumers.
Dhaka WASA will not take the responsibility of the pollution, he adds.
A number of people living in old part of Dhaka have complained that they get limited supply of water most of the time.
People living in city slums and hill districts — Khagrachari, Rangamati and Bandarban — suffer acutely from water crisis.
Water contamination causes widespread water-borne diseases leading to numerous deaths.
WaterAid Bangladesh says that over 2,000 children under five die of diarrhoea every year.
Local government, rural development and cooperatives minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, when contacted, declined to make any comment on the issue over phone.