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Topics Water Water Champions Solving the water supply and sanitation constraints of Bangladesh
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Water Champion: Khondaker Azharul Haq
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Dr. Khondaker Azharul Haq is currently the Vice-Chairman of the Citizens Forum on Water and Sanitation Initiatives in Bangladesh.
For seven years, from '96 - '03, he served as chief executive officer for the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA). DWASA is responsible for water supply and disposal of wastewater (both domestic sewerage and storm water) for Bangladesh's fast growing capital. While with DWASA, Dr. Haq enabled the urban poor living in slum areas to gain access to water supply and sanitation (WSS) services. This was a significant accomplishment given that existing Government rules prohibited water connection to persons who do not hold the title of the holdings they were occupying. After introducing amendments to these rules, DWASA signed a contract with active NGOs, spearheaded by the Dustha Shasthya Kendra (DSK). In the contract, DWASA will provide the WSS services but the NGOs will organize the slum communities and ensure that they are able to pay their water bills on time. Dr. Haq's innovation and service orientation are the results of over three decades of experience in implementing projects on water supply, sanitation, drainage, irrigation and water management, agricultural and rural development, and development administration. |
The biggest problem in water supply is arsenic contamination of the ground water, especially in the rural areas. About 70 out of 130 million population of the country are vulnerable to this threat. In sanitation, high capital cost is the principal constraint.
The Government has been working hard to improve the WSS situation. In a bold decision, it declared that the entire country would be provided with WSS facilities by the year 2010. Even the MDG calls for halving the population now unserved by the year 2015!
I think this target is over ambitious. In the capital city alone, the number of unserved is increasing and the ones served are getting neither their required quantity nor quality of water. Over the last 3 years, the shortfall between water demand and supply in Dhaka increased from 200 million l/day to over 600 million l/day-and this gap is increasing by the day. Despite the good intentions, I think we can expect marginal improvements on the ground. In the same vein, sanitation coverage is low and unless massive investments are made, there is very little chance of any significant improvement.
But all is not lost. Bangladesh has adopted some innovations, with results ranging from marginal to significant. For instance, the NGOs were involved in the arsenic mitigation program, which was a good strategy. Unfortunately, evaluation reveals that their impact was sketchy, to say the least. On the other hand, Bangladesh tried involving trade unions in revenue billing and collection and this proved to be very successful, to the extent that their involvement was expanded.
I think it is essential to involve the private sector. In the service sector, private initiative is universally recognized as engine of growth. But except for some erratic involvement in isolated areas, the private sector has been largely kept out of the WSS sector. We must develop a genuine and effective public- private partnership suitable for Bangladesh's socio-economic conditions. Simultaneously, we must strengthen and expand the involvement of NGOs, especially to serve both the urban and the rural poor.
We also need to reform the institutional set up. The principal approach should be decentralization and power delegation. The zonal offices that are in direct contact with the customers should be given adequate administrative and financial powers to effectively and promptly provide services to their customers. Delegation of authority and power should be done with proper accountability.
Present government policies for water utilities do not really encourage efficient operations. We should recognize that commercial operations couldn't be run efficiently by rules made purely for the Government departments. For example, the lengthy procurement procedure of the Government leads to constant delays in bid evaluation and contract awards. We should really formulate a separate policy for public sector commercial operation.
Another example deals with Dhaka's urban poor in slum areas. About 25% of Dhaka's 130 million population belongs to this category. One major problem in providing them with WSS services is the existing law that requires potential customers to hold the title of the land before they can gain access to WSS services. This is compounded by the large size of families living in individual huts in slum areas, which makes it near impossible to provide them with individual metered connections, and the congestion of houses, which makes it difficult to install the necessary WSS infrastructure.
When I was with DWASA, I personally took the initiative to bend the rules in order to provide WSS service to the urban poor. We implemented a program where we partnered with several NGOs, lead by the Dustha Shasthya Kendra (DSK), to provide WSS services to slum dwellers.
The most important component of this program was that NGO's became DWASA's customers on behalf of the urban poor and was provided with metered community water points. NGO's collected water tariff from the community and paid DWASA.
One special feature of the program is the involvement of women as managers of the community water supply system. By all accounts, these women did a commendable job. The huge success of the program has led to a multimillion-dollar assistance from the UK Department of International Development (DFID) to improve WSS services for both urban and rural poor. In the slum areas, DWASA's services are limited to only water supply. In the near future, sanitation services should also be provided and should include a strong hygiene component.
I believe that donors and key stakeholders should get involved in these areas:
First, I think access to water supply and sanitation services should be recognized as a fundamental human right, whether someone is able to pay or not. This will enable the urban poor to have guaranteed access to WSS services. The cost can be recovered through cross subsidy and/or graduated tariff.
Secondly, public sector involvement in the WSS sector should now be gradually replaced by the private sector. It seems that public sector involvement has already peaked a few years back and has now stagnated. One survey indicates that less than 50% of the customers are satisfied with public sector services. I think the private sector can provide the necessary impetus required for any significant improvement in service delivery and investment. The role of the NGOs should also be strengthened.
Finally, as long as the public sector plays some role in WSS, decentralization and devolution of power are absolute prerequisites. Political and bureaucratic interference in the affairs must be eliminated.
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