Bhakurta’s natural water source being drained out
While it is the bounden duty of Dhaka Wasa to provide drinking water to its residents, that cannot be by depriving other areas of drinking and irrigation water. But that is exactly what the Dhaka Wasa has been doing with the water of a natural aquifer in Bhakurta to supply water to the Mirpur residents for the last five years.
The reservoir in Bhakurta, discovered by Wasa about five years ago, was Providential since it was being refilled naturally through an underground channel linked with the Himalayas. What was estimated to last for about 30-40 years has already gone dry because Wasa had been pumping out crores of litres of water from the source with deep tube wells causing severe water crisis not only for the several lakh residents of two unions of Savar, but also of one union in Keraniganj, where the residents have to scrounge for potable water from here and there because even the hand pumps have run dry. The situation has also deprived a vast swathe of land of water for cultivation, that they had benefitted from since 1985, since last one year. The marginal farmers are the worst affected.
Wasa agrees that the situation has been caused primarily by extracting water in excess of its natural replenishment volume. And this is because perhaps no study was done initially to determine the rate of recharge so that the outflow did not outrun the recharge.
While there seems to be no lack of appreciation of the problem, it seems that Wasa and the Local Government Engineering Department are trying to pass the buck on to one another in so far as developing separate network for water distribution for Bhakurta area instead of the current temporary measure. Neither Wasa nor LGED can shirk their responsibility. And there is nothing as "won't do or can't do" for government agencies. They should put their heads and resources together to solve Bhakurta's water problem, and do it quickly.
Comments