Increasing Access to Safe Water in Rural Villages and Small Towns

 

Bangladesh needs to scale up measures to ensure people’s access to safe (arsenic and pathogen free) drinking water to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in water supply and sanitation by 2015. With the support of the World Bank, the Government had undertaken the Bangladesh Water Supply Program Project (BWSPP) in 2004 to expand the provision of safe drinking water supply services in selected rural villages and small towns.

The Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) under the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives is implementing this project which is funded by the World Bank (IDA Grant of US$ 18.29 million). BWSPP was designed with the objective of shifting rural and small town households from arsenic contaminated tube wells towards safe water sources. In doing so, the project pilots innovative service provision measures, including private sector participation in rural schemes, focusing on the areas affected by the 2007 floods and cyclones.

The project implementation started to show progress since the government approved it in December 2008 and with the change in the Project Management setup in January 2009. The project implementation continues to show significant progress particularly in the three major project components i.e., rural piped water supply, Pourashava water supply and rural non-piped water supply. The project was restructured with revised scaled down targets to enable the project to be successfully completed within the remaining project timeframe. Almost all contracts associated with the restructured project are underway and progressing satisfactorily, leading to the anticipation that the project will be able to meet its revised implementation targets and achieve its revised Development Objective within the remaining timeframe.

As the project approaches its final few months the Project Management Unit and DPHE establishments at Division, District and Upazila levels will need to focus on supervision of ongoing contract and works, smooth and timely contracts completion, sustainable operations and maintenance, and maximization of project delivery. Besides, potential project savings are expected to be utilized to accommodate additional demands for increased access to safe water beyond the current project targets.

In order to help meet the immediate priority needs resulting from the widespread death and damage resulting from the tropical cyclone “AILA”, the World Bank has agreed to a formal proposal from the Government to utilize project savings to provide additional 4,000 water point sources to assist relief efforts in cyclone affected areas.