A new water treatment plant will be set up at Sayedabad Water Treatment Project (Phase-III) aiming to collect 70% water from surface sources by 2030.
The new plant with the daily supply capacity of 450 million litre water will be established at a cost of Tk4,597 crore. Dhaka WASA will implement the project by June 2020.
The above project is one of the seven projects worth Tk7,215 crore approved by the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec) yesterday at the NEC conference room with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Of the total project cost, the government will provide Tk3,117 crore from the national exchequer while Tk3,993 crore will come as project assistance and the organisation concerned will contribute Tk104 crore from its own fund.
After the meeting, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal briefed reporters about the project details.
On the new treatment plant, he said the project location is the right embankment of River Meghna at Haria under Sonargaon Upazila of Narayanganj district while the water transmission line would go through Haria-Sonargaon-Narayanganj-Sayedabad and then Dhaka.
Under the project, there will be construction of intake raw water pumping station, sludge treatment plant, 52.8 kilometre transmission line, 54 kilometre distribution line and 33 kv electric line.
According to the Planning Ministry, currently, the daily water supply demand for some 1.5 crore city dwellers is 2,200 million litre. The daily demand would reach 5,268 million litre water by 2035.
Dhaka WASA is now mainly dependent on groundwater for meeting up the demand and with such operations the layer of ground water is gradually decreasing by two to three meters every year which poses serious risk to the environment as well as to fresh drinking water in future.
The meeting also approved another project titled “BSCIC Industrial Park, Tangail” with Tk164 crore to be implemented by the BSCIC by June 2017.
Under the project, some 50 acres of land would be acquired to prepare some 280 industrial plots while necessary infrastructural facilities like roads, drains, culverts, power, water and gas connections would be ensured at the Industrial Park.
The other projects approved in the meeting are Strengthening Research Activities of Bangladesh Sugarcane Research Institute with (Tk 63.17 crore), Protection of right embankment of River Jamuna and constructing alternate embankment from Kurnibari of Sariakandi Upazila of Bogra to Chandanbaisha (Tk301.53 crore), Karnaphuli Water Supply Project (2nd revised, Tk1,848.53 crore), Scour protection of Meghna Bridge and maintenance of Meghna and Gomoti Bridges (Tk41.05 crore) and development of various roads under Chittagong City Corporation with (Tk199.99 crore).