Paani: Bangladesh Water Status Report

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Paani Bangladesh Water Status Report

• Aftab Ahmad, President, Dhaka Water and
  Sanitation Authority (DWASA) Employees
  Cooperative
• Zakir Kibria, BanglaPraxis
• September 25-27, 2008
• Asian Colloquium on Water Common Good, Public
  Management, and Alternatives
• IIT, Chennai, India

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Status of Water Delivery in Rural Areas

• Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated
  country in the world
• 140 million people in 147, 570 sq km
• Average national coverage is 59
• Primarily through hand tube-wells
• Majority of tube-wells installed by people (78),
  technology supplied by market
• Government installed 18 and NGOs 4
• Neglect and gradual deterioration of traditional
  dug- wells and other water sources since the
  introduction of tube-wells

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Status of Water Delivery in Rural Areas

• Data and statistics doesnt necessarily show the
  whole picture
• Arsenic contamination of groundwater 22
  tube-wells of the country
• Ecological degradation of the river system
• Upstream unilateral withdrawal of river water
  causing groundwater depletion
• Intrusion of salinity in coastal areas (climate
  change to make it worse)
• Groundwater depletion because of over extraction
  of groundwater for irrigation (impact of green
  revolution agriculture)

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Status of Water Delivery in Rural Areas

• Spatial access to tube-well is controlled by
  rural elites and burden of collecting water on
  women
• Indigenous communities and ethnic minorities
  underserved (lack of entitlement to land, not
  able to install tube-well)
• 29 of the tube-wells contaminated with bacteria
  which increase in monsoon, main reasons are
  inadequate sanitation
• Rural sanitation coverage is only 29 (2003)
• Grameen Bank (the winner of Nobel prize for
  peace) pioneer micro-credit organization signed
  contract with French water giant Veolia

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Status of Water Delivery in Urban Areas

• National coverage in urban water supply is 71
• Coverage by piped water supply 39
• Coverage by hand tube well 32
• Sanitation coverage in small towns and large
  metropolis 74
• National Water Management Plan projects that in
  the next 30 years urban population will outnumber
  rural population

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Status of Water Delivery in Urban Areas

• Depletion of groundwater because of over
  extraction
• Ecological degradation of rivers and industrial
  pollution has made surface water treatment
  extremely difficult
• Untreated sewerage released to open river
• Only two metropolis (Dhaka Chittagong) has
  sewerage system
• No service provision for slum dwellers as they
  dont have entitlement to land (NGO mediation
  resulted in buying water from utilities and
  selling to slum dwellers)
• Energy crisis disrupting water supply services

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Policy framework

• National Policy for Safe Water Supply
  Sanitation, 1998
• National Water Policy, 1998
• National Water Management Plan, 2004
• National Policy for Arsenic Mitigation, 2004
• Water Sector Development Framework, 2005
• National Sanitation Strategy, 2005
• Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, 2005
• PRSP 2.0 being developed now
• Guidelines for Water Supply in Dhaka City, 2006

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Policy framework

• Policies talk about right to water but water is
  not declared as inalienable right
• Water is considered economically important
  public good
• Willingness to pay prioritized
• Affordability to pay not considered
• Recovery of cost encouraged and prescribed
• Prescription to gradually phase out all forms of
  subsidy
• Concept of scarcity value
• Private sector participation promoted

9
Policy framework International Financial
Institutions dictate the rules

• Every single policy related to water formulated
  under IFI projects and/or technical assistance
• National Water Management Action Plan a
  consultant led and IFI driven document
• Water Sector Development Program (SDP) formulated
  under the direction and finance of IFIs
• World Bank Bangladesh Water Supply Project
• WBADBbilateral donors Dhaka Water Supply
  Program and Project
• ADB Secondary Towns Water Supply Project
• ADB Secondary towns urban governance project
  used to commercialize water service delivery
  system

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Forms of Management

• Local Government Division (LGD) Overall
  governance and monitoring, policy formulation and
  planning
• Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE)
  responsible for providing water and sanitation to
  rural and urban areas not covered by WASAs (water
  utilities)
• Local Government Engineering Department (LGED)
  responsible for rural infrastructure including
  water
• Local Government Institutions (LGI) management
  of community level water and sanitation system

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Forms of Management Tariffs and Regulation

• Ministries approve tariffs set by water utilities
  and municipalities
• Flat rate of tariff Five star hotels with heated
  swimming pools and slum dwellers pay same rate
• Limited provision of street hydrants
• Cost recovery prescribed by policies
• Breaking news Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage
  Authority (DWASA) declared 20 increase in
  tariffs

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Forms of management conditions set by IFIs and
donors

• Water Services Act to be enacted roles and
  responsibility of stakeholders (public, private,
  NGO etc) will be under the
• Setting up Water Regulatory Commission public,
  private and NGOs responsible to commission
• Establishment of Water Tariff Regulatory
  Commission
• Decentralizing tariff fixing authority to local
  government institutions under overall guidance
  and control of Tariff Regulatory Commission
• Allow private sector investment in water
  utilities specially in urban areas

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Alternatives Dhaka WASA public-public partnership

• In 1996 World Bank attached condition to a loan
  for a water treatment that specific services of
  Dhaka Water Sewerage Authority (DWASA) to
  handed over to private operator
• Utility workers mounted resistance
• Workers proposed action research on revenue
  collection launched utility, workers, private
  operator given responsibility to collect revenue
  from three different zone
• Only workers managed zone fulfilled revenue
  collection target
• Workers given the other two zone

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Alternatives Dhaka WASA public-public partnership

• World Bank decided to forget the experiment and
  their promise to scale up the model in future
  projects
• Policy ambiguity about the experiment
• New WBADB project to shut down the experiment
• Breaking news DWASA called tender, private
  sector to submit proposals to collect revenue
• Dhaka WASA Employees Cooperative planning to make
  bid with resources collected from members
  provident fund, pension and savings

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Change is possible! Reclaim the Public
Water!Thanks you for your attention!