Bangladesh National Awami Party (Bangladesh NAP) has opposed the latest move to hike the price of water supplied by the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Dhaka WASA).
In a press statement issued on Thursday, the party’s chairman Jebel Rahman Ghaani and Secretary General M Golam Mostafa Bhuiyan called upon the authorities concerned to refrain from such a move. “The decision to increase the water tariff anew will cause great distress to common people. If WASA water’s price is hiked again, it will increase the existing hardship of the city dwellers,” they said.
The NAP leaders said that Dhaka WASA in the last 12 years increased water prices 13 times. The sewerage bill has also increased in the period. WASA is taking sewerage bills to almost 100 percent from the customers at the same price as water, even though it provides services in less than 30 percent of the areas. It is nothing but cheating with the common people, they said. Jebel Rahman Ghaani and Golam Mostafa Bhuiyan alleged that Dhaka WASA has failed to provide pure drinking water to the city dwellers. Besides, corruption has increased in the organisation and it has reached an unbearable level. However, the Covid-19 pandemic situation has been going on for two years. At the time, the income of common people has decreased. Sustaining livelihood has become a major challenge for the people. In such a situation, the move to increase the price of water, electricity, and gas can’t be accepted,” they argued.
They also said that people now use the water supplied by WASA after boiling or filtering. Against this backdrop, the authorities concerned need to reduce the management cost of the organisation instead of increasing water tariff. The two leaders alleged that Dhaka WASA wants to increase the water price due to its widespread corruption. Corruption has become institutionalized in the organisation. WASA has become a failed body.
Its decision to increase water prices again is completely autocratic. The government must cancel the decision, considering the wellbeing of the people, they said.
Dhaka WASA has proposed has to increase the price of water by at least 20% to reduce the government subsidy. It wants to make the new water price effective from July 1 this year.
According to the law, WASA can make a 5 percent increase in price each year. On May 24 last year, the Dhaka WASA raised water tariff by 5% with effect from July 1 in 2021.
The current tariff for each unit of water (1,000 litres) is Tk 15.18 for residential use, while Tk 42 for commercial connections.
