DWASA set to treat Meghna water for city dwellers

Tk 45.97b treatment plant to have 900m litres capacity
The Dhaka WASA (DWASA) is expected to set up the country’s largest 900-million litre capacity treatment plant investing Tk 45.97 billion for purifying Meghna river water for dwellers of the capital city, officials said Wednesday.

The capital’s water and sewerage authority will also set up another 450-million litres of water per day (MLD) capacity treatment plant at Syedabad for removing the sludge of the Sitalakhya river.

The plant will be utilised for removing sludge of the Sitalakhya River water at the existing two and one proposed treatment plants at Sayedabad.

The Sitalakhya river — the city’s main source of surface water — is becoming increasingly polluted.

The Local Government Division (LGD) recently sought approval of the Tk 45.97 billion Syedabad Water Supply Project (Phase-III) from the Planning Commission. The Danish government will provide US$400 million (Tk30.53 billion) funds for establishing the water purifiers.

The Bangladesh government has taken a policy to boost supply of the surface water instead of the existing deep-water to the city people for use in drinking and other purposes, said a LGD official.

Dhaka WASA Managing Director Engineer Taqsem A Khan said the DWASA plans to reduce dependence on groundwater to about 30 per cent of the total water supply by 2021 from the current 78 per cent to ensure environmentally sustainable water supply.

Dhaka has been drawing heavily on groundwater but the current rate of extraction is no longer sustainable with the water table falling by 2-3 metres a year.

DWASA officials said the currently operational 1st and 2nd Sayedabad water treatment plants purify nearly 450 MLD of water for supply to the Dhaka city’s inhabitants.

Under the phase-III of the proposed project, the WASA will also set up a 53 kilometre-long pipeline from the proposed Gandhabpur water intake plant to the planned 900 MLD capacity Sayedabad treatment plant for purification.

As per the work plan, the WASA will set up the 900 MLD plant, 450 MLD plant at Syedabad, and 53km Gandhabpur-Syedabad pipeline by July 2020.

The DWASA is working to set up another 500 MLD capacity water treatment plant with the financial support of the ADB at Gandharbpur in Munshiganj capable of handling 500 MLD of water, and install raw and treated water transmission pipelines from the Meghna river.

These initiatives are expected to reduce groundwater extraction by 150 MLD and help the DWASA raise its overall surface water supply to 1.9 billion litres a day by 2021.

Currently, the DWASA supplies nearly 2,178 MLD of water from both the ground and surface sources.

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