Safe drinking water remains elusive
People wait with containers at a water source, and a man carrying empty pitchers on a rickshaw van starts for a distant place to fetch drinking water in Morelganj upazila of Bagerhat district as people of the area, ravaged by cyclone Sidr and Aila, are still facing serious water crisis.Photo: STAR
Serious crisis of safe drinking water grips the people in all the 16 unions under Morelganj upazila of Bagerhat district. Most of the deep and shallow tube-wells installed by Public Health Engineering Department have been lying inoperative since they were damaged by cyclonic storms Sidr and Aila accompanied by furious tidal surges in 2007 and 2009. Water of the still functional tube-wells is not worth drinking due to salinity and arsenic contamination. Excessive salinity also makes water of the local ponds undrinkable. People have to walk for long under the scorching heat of the sun to fetch 'relatively safe' water from a few ponds and canals at far off places. Due to the situation, water-borne diseases have broken out in an epidemic form at Jiudhara, Nishanbaria, Khaulia and Baroikhali villages under Morelganj upazila. Engineer Moniruzzaman Mian of Morelganj Public Health Engineering office said 2,539 of the 4,069 tube-wells are now out of order while water of rest 1,530 tube-wells are affected with salinity and arsenic contamination. Crisis of safe drinking water has also taken an alarming turn in a large coastal area of the Sundarbans as a pond named 'Birshreshtha Sipahi Mostafa Kamal Dighi' situated at Harbaria under East Wing of the Sundarbans Forest Division is the only source of safe drinking water there. Thousands of people of coastal areas go to this pond by boat to fetch safe drinking water from the pond that was excavated in 1998 to meet requirement of drinking water for forest staff, fishermen, bawalis as well as animals. "This pond excavated under the supervision of Sundarbans Forest Division seems to be a wonder to us as its water is free from salinity and arsenic contamination. It meets the crying need of safe drinking water not only of people but also of animals in the forest," said Harbaria forest camp officer-in-charge Nayan Mistry.
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