Delegates from India and Sri Lanka water supply authorities held a meeting with Dhaka Wasa officials at a city hotel yesterday over implementation of the District Metering System (DMS).
Dhaka Wasa Managing Director Taqsem A Khan presided over the meeting, which was attended by Deputy Residence Representative of Asian Development Bank Oleg Tonkonojenkov, and officials of the Rajasthan Urban Infrastructure Development Project of India and the National Water Supply Drainage Board of Sri Lanka, stated a press release.
Dhaka Wasa has seen a remarkable reduction in systems loss through implementation of the District Metering System, said Oleg Tonkonojenkov in his speech He also praised the initiative of Dhaka Wasa for bringing slum dwellers under legal water connections.
Taqsem A Khan said: “It is a tough job to supply uninterrupted water to more than one and a half crore dwellers of Dhaka city. But with some effective and time-bound initiatives, Dhaka Wasa has not only been able to meet the increasing demand of water in Dhaka city, but also become capable of producing surplus water.”
The Dhaka Wasa MD informed the meeting that due to the environmental aspect, Wasa is shifting to surface water sources, reducing its dependency on underground water.
“That’s why three mega-surface water supply projects have already been undertaken at a cost of about Tk12,000 crore. In purifying the water of the Padma and Meghna Rivers, a total of 140 crore liters of water would be supplied daily after completion of the three projects,” he said.
Taqsem mentioned that various donor agencies were coming forward to invest in Dhaka Wasa for its various successes.
He also said the representatives of India and Sri Lanka had come to the country to gather experience of success stories of Dhaka Wasa and hoped they would be able to apply that experience in their respective countries.
The representatives of the aforesaid two countries have come to Dhaka to learn the success of Dhaka Wasa with the DMA approach that includes a remarkable reduction of systems loss, and an uninterrupted quality water supply, among others.
