Wasa plans 20pc hike in water tariff
Dhaka Wasa is planning to increase water tariff by 20 percent, only after a month it slapped a five percent increase in tariff.
Dhaka Wasa Managing Director (MD) engineer M Raihanul Abedin said, "The Board has approved increasing water tariff by 20 percent and the proposal has already been sent to the LGRD ministry for final decision."
"The Dhaka Wasa Board has the mandate to increase tariff up to five percent annually. The Board increased tariff by five percent in July after three years. But it is not sufficient to meet the expenditure as the salary of Wasa employees were increased by 20 percent," he said.
He said due to frequent power outage, they have to run pumps often by generators, which is contributing to a rise in water lifting cost.
However, the decision of increasing tariff without improving the service of Wasa facing systems loss has raised questions.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Chairman Prof Muzaffer Ahmad said, "An organisation needs to tackle systems loss before increasing tariff."
"Wasa should improve its service first," he said, adding that it should conduct a survey before making such decisions.
However, the Dhaka Wasa MD is confident of providing the city residents with better service in the near future.
“We shall install more water treatment plants to increase our production. Water supply in the city will improve after implementation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded Dhaka Water Supply Sector Development Programme at a cost of Tk 1,456 crore. Moreover, we shall purchase 75 generators," he added.
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