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WASA and water loss

12 April 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By S. A. Mansoor Gulshan, Dhaka
12 April 2005, 18:00 PM
Your city correspondent's write up (DS: 6 April) that WASA plans to reduce the systems loss by 30 percent is good news indeed. Even if they can reduce it by 15 percent by end June, one can consider it a good performance. However ground realities are a different matter. I hope WASA improve their response to leakage and damage reports, for these are also a large source of water loss. My personal experience in this connection has been unfortunately rather disappointing.

During my regular early morning walk on March 1, I noticed water leaking out adjacent to Gulshan Road No. 28, at the corner where it meets the Gulshan Avenue going north from Gulshan First Circle. It is in front of the showroom of International Office Equipment premises located there. I telephoned WASA after a day or two when nothing was done for repairing it and gave them the location of the leak. I was pleased to get a polite and appreciative response which was rather surprising coming from our autonomous authority. Unfortunately, the matter ended there. Even this morning water was still leaking and the quantum of water flow has markedly increased since last fortnight, and the showroom has spread bricks between its door and the footpath to allow access without dirtying one's shoes.

If such be the state of operations, then we need to develop a fast response capability of WASA to repair leaks and damages to its large network of pipe lines.

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I hope these matters are also incorporated as part of the systems loss assessment. Very conservatively estimating, this small leak alone has caused loss of over 250,000 litres of potable water!