Part of Bhagalpur without water supply for months

After the water tap ran completely dry at her house three months ago, Saleha Begum visited the nearby Durga temple to collect water for a few days. But soon it turned out to be unviable and she was forced to start buying water. The temple did not have enough water to fill all the pitchers that were queued up every day.

"My husband runs a scrap store and his income is meagre. So it is very difficult for him to spend an additional Tk 100 every day to fetch 10 pitchers full of water by a rickshaw-van. We have no choice; we are bound to do it to meet our regular demand," she said.

A part of Bhagalpur in the capital's Hazaribagh, where Saleha lives, has been seeing the water crisis for several months, and a few months ago almost a hundred households ran out of water. Officials say the water pump in the area is unable to meet the demand of a swelling population.

Saleha and her neighbours now regularly travel at least 2km from their house to Kamrangirchar to have their pitchers filled. Each pitcher of water costs Tk 10, and Saleha needs 10 for bathing, drinking, and cleaning at her four-member household.

"We are facing the crisis for the last several years, but it grew acute three months back," she said.

Locals and officials of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) said the population had got four times bigger in the last five years.

Nimai Pal, a local resident and businessman affiliated with the city corporation, said there were only 2,000 voters in the area around five years ago, which was now 8,000. "Setting up a new water pump is extremely necessary to solve the problem," he said.

A deputy managing director of Wasa, SDM Kumrul Alam Chowdhury, admitted that there had been a fall in the production of the pump but said the main cause was an increasing population.

In addition, he said, many houses did not have reservoirs to store water.

Kamrul said they were trying to set up a pump. In the meantime, Wasa is sending water lorries to the area and will continue to do so until the problem is solved, he said.

SEWAGE SPILL

Meanwhile, the residents of Moneshwar Road area in Hazaribagh have been suffering due to overflowing sewerage water on the street for the last few days.

"We have to wade on a 20-foot flooded stretch of Bashtola lane, as the road has been under one foot deep water since Monday," said Shahida Begum, mother of Rokshana Akhtar, a 7th grader at Saleha High School, who was seen wading through the road holding her daughter up.

"The water is so dirty that it causes skin diseases. So I did not let my daughter wet her legs," she said.

The problem has occurred four times in the last two months, and every time the water receded three to four days later, said Faruk Hossain, a resident of Bashtola road.

Nearby streets have also been flooded.

He said the drainage line blocked by garbage near BGB gate-5 was causing the problem.

 Executive Engineer of Dhaka South City Corporation (zone-3) Khayrul Baker said Wasa was working to clear the sewerage pipe now.