Projects on usable water should be expanded for greater impact

The municipal bodies must take water supply as their mandatory function more seriously and draw up a medium-term plan to bring 100 percent of urban population under a piped water supply network by 2030.

Nearly half of the country's “safe” water -- supplied from technologically-improved sources -- is contaminated with E. coli bacteria, which is responsible for various intestinal diseases, revealed a World Bank report released in the capital yesterday.