Kalpana Maharjan, Dhaka Community Manager
Banu, a mother of two, lives in a slum of Bagunbari, Dhaka. She is a single mother who works as a housemaid to earn her living. She says, “The pond water I was forced to get water from previously was very dirty with a bad smell. My daughters and I would suffer from diarrhea, jaundice, dysentery, and skin diseases. But after the installation of the deep tube well, we are able to get safe water much more quickly… [now] we don’t have these water-borne diseases anymore!”
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is one of the cities with the highest population growth in the world. The World Bank estimates that approximately 28 percent of the population is poor, and about 3.4 million live in precarious conditions in slums and low-lying lands. These people do not own the land they live on, making access to water and sanitation in urban low-income communities a growing challenge. These communities often collect water from private vendors or unreliable sources like polluted rivers, which pose biological and environmental health threats. Plus, a significant number of slum residents live without access to toilets and garbage collection services, so human waste and garbage contaminate the environment, further elevating health risks. It is clear that poor water quality is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Dhaka slums.
Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA), which was created in 1963 as a public utility under the Ministry of Local Government, supplies Dhaka with water and sewerage services. For many years, however, these services were limited only to those who had legal right to their land, thereby excluding slum residents. Today, a significant number of these marginalized communities nevertheless benefit from DWASA’s services, thanks to Dushtha Shasthya Kendra (DSK).
DSK, established in 1992, is a Dhaka-based NGO that operates in partnership with WaterAid Bangladesh and advocates for supplying Dhaka’s residents with water, regardless of land ownership. In order to get around DWASA’s fear that slum dwellers would not pay their utilities fees, DSK designed the Watsan Project. According to the model, water points were constructed in slum communities and were then connected to the DWASA water mains. Access to these water points costs just Tk. 50 per month, and security deposits help ensure that DWASA’s fees are paid on time.
Not only does this program provide a way to supply clean water to slum communities, it also provides residents with trainings on the maintenance of Watsan facilities, hygiene, and healthy practices. These initiatives help slum residents live a life free from water-borne diseases.
Photo credits: Water.org and BRAC University