Water crisis makes life tough on Bepari Goli

Alamin Hossain, a resident of Bepari Goli in the capital's Moghbazar, was moving out of the neighbourhood to Malibagh yesterday. His family could no longer bear with the acute water crisis, which has been going on for the last one month, with the house owner failing to solve it.

"Every day, we had to spend Tk 500 to buy 10 jars of water to meet the demand of our family," said Alamin.

Though many residents of Bepari Goli get water supply for half an hour to one hour every day, they did not get a single drop of water in the last one month, he said.

Alamin said because of the water shortage, he was forced to bathe twice a week while his mother, sister and aunt used to go to a relative's home to take bath every day.

"My father would bathe at his office, Holy Family Red Crescent Hospital," he said.

Siddique Ahmed Chowdhury, another resident of the lane, said they received supply for around half an hour daily in the last 15 days.

He said they formed a human chain on Sunday protesting the crisis and demanding an immediate solution.

"The amount of water which we get is so little that the tenants cannot collect more than one small container of water a day," said Rahima Khatun, another resident of Bepari Goli.

"We have been buying three lorries full of water every day from Wasa for the apartment building over the last one month because the water we get from the supply line is too little," said Kabir Mallik, security guard at the building named Green Valley.

Several thousand people live on Bepari Goli.

A deputy managing director of Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa), SDM Quamrul Alam Chowdhury, said the crisis occurred due to the hot weather in the last few days. Voltage fluctuations at Sayedabad Water Treatment Plant, which reduced production from Thursday to Saturday, may be another cause, he added. He said they were trying to solve the problem soon, adding that Wasa had already sent two lorries to the area to provide free water to the residents and would send more.

Ismail Hossain, operator of T&T Pump at Wireless Gate in Moghbazar, said the problem of Bepari Goli might be tied to a problem in the supply line.

During the dry season, the water level drops significantly, reducing production at the pump by around 20 percent, he said, describing this as another potential cause of the crisis.