CWasa raises water rate

Residents of the port city are unhappy with the Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (CWasa)'s decision of increasing the water rate by five percent from January 1, 2016, after a gap of just one year.

CWasa approved the proposed water rate on November 7, said sources.

Some tenants told The Daily Star that they were worried because their house owners might raise the house rents correspondingly with the hike in the water charge.

Amir Uddin, an associate professor of Chittagong University and a resident of the city's Agrabad Muhuri Para, pointed out that instead of addressing the water crisis in areas where CWasa could not supply enough water as per the demand, it was raising the charge.

CWasa now charges Tk 7.25 per thousand litres, and the rate will be increased to Tk 7.61.

When asked, AKM Fazlullah, managing director of CWasa, said their production cost had been increased due to hikes in the gas, fuel, electricity prices and labour costs.

He said that on the basis of the cost, Tk 9 would have been the reasonable rate but only after considering the public's financial condition they decided on the five percent rise.

According to sources, CWasa can now fulfill 42 percent of the total water demand and about 88 percent of the total supply goes to households. As a result, many government and non-government agencies, schools, colleges do not have an adequate supply of water.

The toilets of Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH), the largest public hospital in the division, often remain without water, causing sufferings to people.

CMCH Director Brig Gen Khondakar Shahidul Ghani said the hospital needed 1.5 lakh gallons of water per day while it got only 40 to 50 thousand gallons.

Prof Sikander Khan, president of Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa), Chittagong, said people did not know what actually CWasa was doing to address the water crisis; except for installations of some pipelines, no progress was seen in the last few years.

In a release sent to the media on Sunday, the Consumer Association of Bangladesh (CAB) demanded that the decision be retracted.

Contacted, SM Nazer Hossain, member of CAB's central executive committee, said the hike would particularly affect the middle and low income groups who were already struggling with the price hike in daily essentials.

Moreover, there will be a huge rise in meter tampering and illegal supply lines to dodge the increased bill, he added.

Admitting that CWasa' services were not up to the mark, its managing director said, "We have paid attention to reduce the system loss…our system loss stands at 17 percent whereas the system loss in Dhaka is over 35 percent and in Karachi it is 40 percent."

He assured that CWasa would be able to meet 70 percent of the water demand by March next year, following the completion of the five-year long Karnaphuli Water Supply Project.