Water crisis in Chattogram, victims besiege WASA office

The victims besieged the WASA office in Chattogram to protest the water crisis. During this, they expressed their anger over the irregular supply of water and raised various slogans.

More than fifty people participated in the protest in front of the Dampara office from 11:30 am on Tuesday (March 11).

The protesters alleged that there has been a water crisis in different areas of the city for a long time, which has become extreme during Ramadan.

In this regard, Sirajul Islam, a resident of Dhanyalapara in the city, said, "We are not getting regular water. Even during Ramadan, the water supply was stopped since Saturday due to damage to the pipeline. The pipeline is often bursting, due to which we are suffering from severe water crisis. We have come here to make a demand against this ongoing crisis."

Chattogram WASA sources said that on Saturday (March 8), around 8 pm, during the development work of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh Limited (PGCB) in the Sagarika area of ​​the city, the main transmission line of WASA was damaged due to the mistake of the contractor. As a result, water supply has been stopped in at least 18 areas including Agrabad and its surroundings.

WASA Chief Engineer Maqsud Alam said that a pipeline of our main transmission line about 15 feet below the topsoil of the soil was damaged. Due to which water supply to some surrounding areas was disrupted. The work of repairing the pipeline is underway. We are working to normalize water supply quickly.

In this regard, Chattogram WASA Managing Director Mohammad Anwar Pasha said that during the development work of a PGCB project, the main transmission line of Chittagong WASA with a diameter of 1100 mm was damaged at the Sagarika intersection. Due to this, water supply to several surrounding areas including Dhanyalapara and Dewanhat in the city was disrupted.

He also said that unfortunately, the main transmission line was damaged once 4 days before Ramadan, which was also a big loss. It took about seven to eight days to repair. Now it has been damaged once again. We hope to be able to repair the line and start it up by this evening. After that, the water supply situation will gradually improve.