Access to safe drinking water

As per UNICEF data, Bangladesh ranks 7 out of 10 countries that offer least access to safe water for consumption. This was revealed on World Water Day. Ironically, Bangladesh suffers from excessive water in monsoon and paucity of water in winter. With more than 13 per cent of the population not having sufficient access to clean and hygienic water for drinking, this automatically translates into health issues for millions of people in the country, particularly children. In the capital city Dhaka, an estimated 15million people have been living with the scourge of unsafe drinking water for decades, which is hardly surprising given the gross negligence of authorities in protecting our rivers from manmade pollution. Buriganga, Sitalakhya, Turag and Balu rivers that could be the sources of surface water supply have turned toxic and therefore not usable.
Indeed, over the decades, successive governments have put on the backburner the need to relocate factories such as the tannery plants that have indiscriminately dumped industrial waste into rivers which were once the lifeline of Dhaka. There has been just a serious mismatch between the use of surface water and that of ground water. Things have gotten to a stage when water supply to city residents now relies on deep tube wells that are drying up natural aquifers at the rate of 1-3 meters per year. This threatens land subsidence which itself is an issue. Population pressures will continue to grow with passing years and the authorities need to wake up to certain ground realities. There is no alternative to sound surface water management and tackling the industrial pollution that is killing our rivers.