Editorial
WASA's saving grace
Trenchless pipe installation welcome
DHAKA Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWSA) has earned a notoriety for claiming the largest share of road digging, and as if that was not enough, for supplying undrinkable water that even stinks in a large swathe of the metropolis. These sending livability index of Dhaka life further down, the denizens have had a plenty of reasons to feel hard done by.
At long last, however, appears a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. DWASA is introducing no-dig technology, albeit on a pilot basis at the moment to replace old water pipes as well as to expand its network. A project has been inaugurated on old Elephant Road and Gulshan Road No.103 to replace the 'open-cut system' of installing water and sewer pipes. Need we say, the traditional method has tormented the citizens to no end, thanks to off-season excavation, potholed roads, puddles of water logging, all contributing to a severe traffic congestion, hazardous public movement and hygienic risk.
Apart from the hardships caused to urban life, chaotic excavation has been at the root of corruption and the poor quality development work rushed through the fag-end of a fiscal year. It is our expectation that inasmuch as the trenchless technique will obviate large scale excavation, it should help reduce corruption considerably. We have to wait and see on that. The new method involving drilling of holes at both ends of a road-stretch, to be installing a pipe, and, in case of replacement, using a sharp cutter internally, has been applied successfully in Kolkata. The question is: why such an obviously useful technique was not introduced in Dhaka earlier on, so as to spare us the proverbial suffering.
Now, the magnitude of the task is summed up by the fact that 3,481 km of water lines will have to be replaced and extended under the project that has just been flagged off with a long way to go, right up to 2,013. Of foremost importance at this stage is the imperative of making the pilot project a success and then replicating it onwards. Nothing should be allowed to come in the way of the project's advancement. While we thank the Asian Development Bank (ADB) profusely for its vital assistance in the project, we wonder why DESA, Titas Gas and T&T should not explore the possibility of averting road digging so as to radically bring down the levels of unpleasant excavation surprises.
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