Residents of Karail slum are fearing that they are going to face scarcity of drinking water in the coming days as the Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) started disconnecting illegal water pipelines without ensuring sufficient water for them.
Employees of Wasa on Monday started severing illegal pipelines in Gulshan 1 area from where most of water lines of the slum has been connected.
The Wasa has installed a pump at the slum about six months back with a view to providing legal water lines to slum dwellers.
Then, the state-run agency gave connections to 500 households for meeting water demand of 16,000 families.
But the slum dwellers said the connections were not enough to meet the demands of 78,000 people.
Humayun Kabir, a resident of the slum, said, “The provided water lines are not enough for all the dwellers and for that reason many people collect water from illegal pipe lines.”
“If the Wasa disconnects all illegal lines without ensuring required water for all the slum dwellers, 70% people of the slum will face acute water crisis,” said.
“Only influential people have got legal lines,” he said.
He also said Tk5 is needed to take a bath and Tk1 for five-liters of water from the Wasa pump.
SM Mahmudul Hasan, joint secretary of Community Basi Organisation, told the Dhaka Tribune that they were working with Wasa to provide legal connections. “Water crisis at the slum will be solved if Wasa installs another pump,” he said.
The Wasa has built 120 reserve tanks at the slum and capacity of each tank are 5,600 litres, 3,600 litres or 2,100 litres, he said, adding, that the pump is able to pump 30,000 liters of water per hour.
The residents of the slum have been using water through connecting illegal pipelines with Wasa’s pipelines installed at Gulshan and Banani, depriving Wasa of huge amount of revenue every year.
Consequently, the government-owned agency has taken steps to cut illegal lines for reducing system loss, he added.
Last year, Managing Director of Wasa Taqsem A Khan said they would provide legal pipelines to all the slums of the capital by 2015.
He then said Karail and Banani slums were their priorities.
In a visit to the Karail slum, the correspondent found that a large number of slum dwellers were taking bath under Wasa’s pump as their pipelines were disconnected.
Dwellers of the slum expressed grave anxiety about the coming days. They wonder what will happen to the people who did not get legal connections and cannot afford to buy water from the pump.
Commercial Manager of Wasa Uttam Kumar Roy said slum people would not face water scarcity as lines provided by Wasa was sufficient for the slum.
He said they were charging Tk7.34 per unit water (1,000 litres).
