Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) has initiated a programme of selling bottled water by using all of its four idle water treatment plants even though the city's one-third population, mostly poor, is out of the corporation's water supply network.

The RCC circulated a notice on March 2 in this regard seeking proposals from interested persons and organisations for implementing the programme under a public-private partnership scheme.

Under the scheme, the water of the treatment plants will be purified through modern machines and taken to the market in bottles for sale, said RCC Chief Engineer Sirajum Munir.

He said the RCC has taken the plan, as the four water treatment plants have been lying idle since 2006 after failing to achieve goal.

The city now supplies water directly to its around two-third population through pipeline after extracting groundwater by using pumps.

Under a project of Public Health Engineering Department, these plants were constructed at a cost of Tk 22 crore during the period of previous BNP-led four-party alliance government for supplying pure drinking water in the city through pipeline.

Official sources said operation of the water treatment plants remained suspended in 2006, as no alternative pipeline had been constructed to supply water after purification.

“Around Tk 12 lakh is needed per year for treating water at the plants. But pure water mixes with untreated water when it is supplied through the same pipeline of untreated water,” said the RCC chief engineer.

According to RCC records, 5.77 lakh people out of 7.50 lakh in the city are provided with water. Of the total population, 69 percent are provided water through pipelines while 20 percent get water from hand tube wells and the rest 11 percent from open water resources. But according to an unofficial count, around 10 lakh people are now living in the city.

The corporation can now supply 710 lakh litres of water daily against the city's daily water demand for 1,030 lakh litres.

The corporation has earned Tk 386.15 lakh from the water sector in 2007-08 fiscal against its annual expenditure of Tk 300.12 lakh during the same period.

"The corporation has plans for expanding its water supply network. The public-private partnership scheme has been undertaken for making good use of the water treatment plants,” said an official of RCC.

Commenting on the RCC move, Jamat Khan, convenor of Rajshahi Rakkha Sangram Parishad said bottled water would remain out of the poor people's reach, even if, it is sold out at low price.

“The corporation must emphasise supplying pure water to all without any discrimination,” he said adding that the quality of water supplied by RCC is not also satisfactory.