An acute water crisis has hit the city life in the district as the city corporation is failing to maintain steady supply of water to its stakeholders.
The city people are getting only a third of their daily demand of 1.2 crore gallon water from Barisal City Corporation.
Less rainfall, filling of water bodies and unplanned installation of tube wells contribute to groundwater depletion that ultimately leads to supply shortfall, said experts.
Manirul Alam Swapan, executive engineer, Water Supply Department of Barisal City Corporation, acknowledged the crisis.
He said at least half a million city dwellers had a demand for 1.20 crore gallon water per day while the BCC had a capacity to supply 40-45 lakh gallons of water at best.
The city corporation extracts groundwater, using its 33 of 36 deep tube wells and submersible pumps.
The 3.5 lakh dwellers were deprived of BCC’s supply of water and are dependent on canals, ponds, street hydrants, shallow and deep tube wells, BCC sources said.
A trend in sinking tube wells in an unplanned manner by both the BCC and private sectors has led to a rapid fall in groundwater level to 800-1000 feet from 400-800 feet within a decade, alleged Pankaj Gupta, a stakeholder in Hospital Road area.
Failing to say how many tube wells in the city corporation area were working properly and how many were out of order, the BCC said although they permitted installation of around 1,500 shallow and deep tube wells till 2012, their numbers would be more than 5,000.
Sukumar Biswas, divisional director, Directorate of Environment, said a random extraction of groundwater instead of using surface water would endanger life, biodiversity and environment.
Public Health Engineering Department in 2007 planned to construct two surface water treatment plants (SWTP), each with capacity of refining 40 lakh gallon of water from Kirtankhola River to address water crisis in Barisal city, BCC sources said.
The construction of SWTP at Amanatgant at a cost of Tk19.22 crore was scheduled to be completed within 450 days, but only 60% work had been completed, BCC officials said.
On the other hand the construction of SWTP at Rupatali at a cost of Tk30.78 crore was also advancing at a snail’s pace due to obstacle to land acquisition, BCC sources added.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina laid the SWTP foundation on March 21, 2012.
The demand for water from BCC could be fulfilled if the construction of two SWTPs had been completed by now, hoped Nikhil Chandra Das, chief executive officer, BCC.
Dr Mizanur Rahman, member secretary, Barisal Nagorik Samaj, said sufficient potable water supply was a civic and human right.
He said once Barisal was a city of canals and ponds, most of which – surface water sources – had already been filled and silted by encroachers, land grabbers and developers.
The construction of high rises, commercial and official structures in Barisal divisional city occupied the places of water bodies, the rights activist said, adding that the demand for water caused more and more extraction of groundwater which led to water depletion.
Enayet Hossain Chowdhury, a city dweller and civic right activist, emphasised speeding up installation of water treatment plants and excavation of canals, preservation of ponds and other water bodies to use surface water sources for mitigating demand for sufficient safe water supply.
