WASA water 100pc drinkable: MD

Water supplied by Dhaka WASA is 100 per cent drinkable, said its managing director Taksim A Khan rejecting a TIB’s finding that says city dwellers have to burn gas worth Tk 3.32 billion every year for making WASA water filtered. 

He was speaking at a press conference at Dhaka Reporters' Unity in the capital on Saturday.

Terming the TIB study one-sided and ill-motivated, the WASA MD also said the study was done without any laboratory test.

"We’ve collected 243 samples from different parts of Dhaka from 11-19 November and found the standard of water satisfactory," Taksim said to the press briefing.

Sometimes, contaminated water is found in some old supply line but the authorities fix the problem immediately, he added.

The anti-graft watchdog in its study published on Wednesday showed that 93 per cent consumers reported that they made the supply water drinkable in various ways, of which 91 per cent reported that they boil before using water for drinking.  

It has been estimated that for the purpose of making the water drinkable by boiling has an implication of burning natural gas amounting 365,7,37,008 cubic metres, which cost approximately Tk 3.32 billion every year, said the study.

Terming the study as fictitious and unrealistic, Taksim A Khan rejected the statement that all consume boiled WASA water.  

Dwelling on the issue of burning natural gas, he said the WASA earns Tk 4 billion by raising revenue income and another Tk 2 billion by decreasing system loss and this was not mentioned in the TIB study.  

TIB surveyed 2,768 users in 10 MODS Zone of Dhaka and found out that 37.5 per cent customers are unsatisfied over WASA’s service while 20.1 per cent customers expressed satisfaction and 42.4 per cent quite satisfied for WASA services.