Chattogram WASA is set to build Karnaphuli Water Treatment Plant Project-3 at Sarafbhata, on the Karnaphuli river in Rangunia upazila of Chattogram. The plant is to produce 100 million litres of treated water a day, with financing from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

WASA managing director Engineer Selim Md Jane Alam said JICA has agreed to fund it, a JICA team has visited the site, and the feasibility study will start soon; the hiring of experts is under way. The new plant will need no separate pipeline, since treated water can reach the city through the existing pipeline of the second project, he said. The cost will be known after the feasibility study.

WASA says population growth and urbanisation are straining water supply and sanitation in the city, and the project is meant to ease that by raising output and modernising the old supply system.

Chief engineer Maksud Alam said JICA financed the second project at Godown in 2016, with a capacity of 143 million litres a day. That project cost Tk 4,491.15 crore, of which JICA provided Tk 3,623.28 crore, the government Tk 844.80 crore and WASA Tk 23.07 crore. Its water has reached consumers through the Nasirabad reservoir and an elevated tank at Halishahar since 16 March 2021.

The first plant at Shantirhat in Pomra union and the second at Sarafbhata together draw 300 million litres a day from the Karnaphuli and produce 286 million litres of treated water. System loss at the two plants, about 40 kilometres from the city, has been cut from 33 to 20 percent, Maksud Alam said. Work continues to reduce it further, he said; WASA is mainly a service body but, after meeting costs and repaying loans, it is still adding money to its fund.

The report is by Dhaka Tribune, based on information from BSS.

Photo: Dhaka Tribune

Source: Dhaka Tribune