Editorial
Woes of Old Dhaka
DESA, WASA should pay attention
Over the past 72 hours water supply in the old part of the city has sharply declined. WASA authorities have attributed this shortage to inadequate power supply. The Executive Engineer of WASA has confirmed that in order to operate each of the pumps in the locality the required supply has to be 400MW whereas only 350MW is available. We fail to understand as to why the situation cannot be improved since power generation is of a record level this year as recently reported in the local media compared to last year.
Whatever might be the causes for the reduction in supply, the truth remains that a large section of the city's population in the old Dhaka continues to suffer. Worst of all, as reported, students and teachers of many residential educational institutions are also suffering due to acute shortage of water, apart from the power outages. Several hundred resident students of Badrunnessa Womens' College, Eden College and the Home Economics College are living in distress.
Water and power supplies have long been problematic for the residents of old Dhaka and its adjoining areas perhaps more than in other parts of the city. People of these parts are the oldest residents of the city; not only that they also happen to be economically active part of the city's populace. As it is they have somewhat neglected and it is time they received due attention from DESA, WASA, let alone Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) itself by way of alleviating poor drainage and water-logging conditions in the area.
We eagerly await some dynamism and real action on the ground by all the concerned agencies of the government in active cooperation with the local ward commissioners.
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