Under the project titled Bangladesh Water Supply Programme Project (BWSPP), 500 villages worst affected by arsenic will be in phases supplied drinking water through pipeline. The municipal areas will also come under the project through implementation of improved and expanded water supply systems.

The government and the World Bank signed an agreement in June on the BWSPP. The WB will provide $40 million of the funds as grant and the government and private sponsors the rest, sources said.

According to the project plan, consumers will own the water supply systems after a certain period. The private sponsors including NGOs will build the systems and maintain them for at least 10 years. During this time, consumers will pay for water and investment cost.

After that, the systems will be handed over to consumer groups and municipal authorities who will own them.

A WB mission headed by Karin Kemper has meanwhile visited the WB-funded Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project (BAMWSP) in Nawabganj and Satkhira for evaluation.

The BAMWSP in the last fiscal year installed an additional 1,600 arsenic free deep tube-wells (DTWs) in coastal districts and will construct pipeline for water supply in 30 villages and install another 8,000 DTWs in the arsenic-hit areas in the current FY.