Thirsty Sylhet city keeps suffering

The ongoing scarcity of water has almost crippled Sylhet city, which demands 8 crore litres of water on a daily basis, whilst the city corporation is being able to supply 3 crore litres.

To meet the demand, a new Tk 130 crore surface water treatment plant is being constructed in Kushighat area under the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), which will use water from the Surma river to add 2.8 crore litres of water to the daily supply.

But the plant has not been functioning even after the construction was completed a couple of months ago, alleged DPHE officials.

Ali Akbar, executive engineer of SCC, said, "As there is no Water and Sewerage Authority in Sylhet, DPHE is officially responsible for the production of water and SCC for ensuring the supply. The plant has not been handed over yet. Moreover, SCC was not even involved in the planning or construction."

"Hopefully, it will be done by the end of June," he said. "But it may not successfully operate, especially during the dry season, as the source of water is Surma, and the river is dying due to the declining flow from upstream."

Eheteshamul Russel Khan, executive engineer of DPHE, Sylhet, said, "The plant may not be perfectly functional right now, as the water level of Surma is below expectation. But we have sorted out the problem and will use an alternative way of pumping water from the river in the dry season."

If there is any complexity in production, the department will take full responsibility of solving the problem, he added.

As an expanding city, Sylhet demands a huge amount of water but a lot of areas are without supply lines, said Ali Akbar. Residents used to set up deep tube wells to extract underground water without authorisation, and they were cautioned against the practice last month, he added.

Meanwhile, the residents alleged that the corporation was not concentrating on the situation, even areas with water connections were not getting water properly, and still the authority was sending them bills.

"Water provided by the corporation is not regular; it's not even fresh enough," alleged Makdad Hossen Chowdhury, a resident of Housing Estate in the city.

SCC, on the other hand, claimed that the residents were not paying bills accordingly; hence it was losing expected revenues that could have been used to face the scarcity, said Ali Akbar.

According to the civic body, it spends Tk 50 lakh every month on water supply, while they earn only Tk 10–12 lakh.

Faruk Mahmud Chowdhury, president of civil society organisation SHUJAN's Sylhet chapter, said for years authorities had assured them of solving the crisis, but to no avail.

As part of urbanisation, the very first water treatment plant was established in 1918 at Topkhana, which still supplies water to greater Bandarbazar, Sheikh Ghat and Kazir Bazar areas. But residents alleged that the plant was no longer capable of supplying fresh water.

"Water from the Topkhana plant is unhygienic and murky. I have asked the corporation to solve the matter, but they did not take any action," alleged painter Satyazit Chakrabarty, a resident of Bandarbazar.

SCC said they were planning to modernise that water treatment plant, which would provide 1 crore litres of water after renovation.

Currently, the Topkhana surface water treatment plant and 33 production tube wells supply water to the residents. Except for the Kushighat plant, three more production tube wells are under construction and another plant is being planned near Salutikor, SCC informed.

"We are trying our best to provide safe water to all within a couple of years. Several projects are under planning to solve the fresh water crisis," said Enamul Habib, chief executive officer of SCC.