People of Teknaf yet to be brought under sanitation coverage

This is because most families in this coastal upazila still use open space or 'kutcha' latrines, health workers and NGO activists told this on Thursday.

"Many people in the area suffer from various diseases including diarrhoea due to this phenomenon," Abdul Malek, a schoolteacher of Hoaikong village told journalists at his hilltop house here.

Malek is, however, a bit lucky than others because he has an alternative source of safe drinking water and a sanitary latrine. A local non-government organisation named ISHDO (Ideal Society for Health and Development Organisation) provided him the water plant and the sanitary latrine.

ISHDO, a partner organisation of NGO Forum for Safe Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation, along with two other organiations provides technical and logistic support to villagers to get access to safe drinking water and hygienic latrines under a cost sharing system.

Under the system, a villager has to bear 20 percent of the cost to set up a water plant or a sanitary latrine, while the NGOs share 80 per cent cost. A sanitary latrine costs 540 taka, while a rainwater harvesting system (RHS) of 3,200-litre capacity involves an amount of 10,000 taka.

But, this initiative has a little impact on the vast population of the area, where 85 percent people still do not have access to better living. The ISHDO has a target to bring only 300 families under 70 villages of Hoaikong by next year, but even then majority will remain out of the programme.

"We have limitations in terms of capacity and resources. But the government should intervene to solve the problems," ISHDO executive director Ahmadullah Faruki said.

He, however, said the people are also very reluctant to introduce hygienic system at their houses.

"So motivation is a must for them," he said, adding that poverty coupled with illiteracy has been barring all initiatives from improving the quality of live in Teknaf, a major land port and gateway to Saint Martin Island in the Bay of Bengal.

Bangladesh has launched a national campaign to bring the entire population under hundred percent sanitation coverage by the year 2010.