The drinking water crisis is worsening day by day in the Cox’s Bazar district.
The underground water level is getting gradually lower due to unplanned urbanisation, deforestation, filling up of water bodies, and continuous hill cutting. This has also led to increased salinisation of the district's deep tube well water.
The Cox’s Bazar municipality and its adjacent areas of Khurushkul, Chowfoldondi, Link Road and Kalatali are the worst affected.
Experts say if this situation continues the drinking water crisis in the whole district will take a severe turn in five years.
According to municipality sources, the Cox’s Bazar municipality, with an area of 32.90 square kilometres, was established on April 1, 1869. More than 300,000 residents in the 12 wards of the municipality require about 2 million gallons of water each day.
However, only a meagre 324,000 gallons of water are supplied by 10 deep tube wells against the demand.
Residents of Anderson Road of the municipality – Jafar Alam, Masud and Khairul Alam – said they had not been getting drinking water for the last three years. Their tube well became unusable because of salinity.
When contacted, Mayor Sarwar Kamal said they had taken on a project to supply drinking water from the Bakkhali River in the river dam area. “The project will be implemented soon and, once completed, will curb the crisis,” he added.
However, experts opined that supplying such a huge amount of drinking water from Bakkhali River was not feasible.
President of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (BAPA) Cox’s Bazar branch Fazlul Qader Chowdhury said: “The Bakkhali project will not resolve the crisis, since the river is not capable of supplying 2 million litres of water a day.”
He suggested utilising seawater through a desalinisation process.
Professor Dr Ashraf Ali, who has been conducting research on the water crisis in Cox’s Bazar for the last three years, said water in Cox’s Bazar not only had high salinity, but also a mixture of various radioactive elements, such as uranium, thorium, monazite and zircon.
“So it is advised not to use the underground water. Instead, the desalinisation of seawater will not only ensure cheap, pure drinking water but will also produce salt, which could be sold for a profit,” he added.
Meanwhile, Cox’s Bazar Suraksha Parishad submitted a memorandum to the prime minister on February 25 to resolve the water crisis as soon as possible.
The newly-appointed Deputy Commissioner of Cox’s Bazar Md Ali Hossain said an initiative would be taken after consulting everyone.
