Dhaka plans to preserve rain water

The government has decided to promote rain water harvesting as the interim option to arsenic contaminated ground water, before unveiling a sustainable solution to the problem in Bangladesh, said local government ministry sources.

They said the government would soon launch a massive countrywide campaign for harvesting, preserving and drinking rain water, which would not only keep people free from accumulation of arsenic in their systems, but also cut down the level of concentration of the poison in their bodies.

"If arsenic affected people drink rainwater regularly in the rainy season they could get better from arsenicosis," said A.Y.B.I. Siddiqi, secretary of the local government ministry, quoting physicians.

"The national committee on arsenic has reviewed all the expert recommendations, but eventually we found rain water as the most available, safe source of drinking water," Siddiqi told the official BSS news agency yesterday.

Arsenic is a chemical contamination in the underground water levels and has posed serious threats to drinking water for millions since its detection in 1993.

The government campaign for rain water consumption, the secretary said, is also aimed at making people aware of the serious consequences of indiscriminate use of underground water, specially drawn from shallow tube-wells, for drinking.

Officials at a recent meeting decided to promote rain water as an urgent and most available solution to arsenic for the time being, as well as to provide support to harvesting rain water both at urban and rural areas.

The department of public health and engineering has already marked out 20 highly arsenic-contaminated villages for equipping with rain water preserving facilities to popularise the system gradually across the country, sources said.

Appreciating the government's move, chairman of Dhaka Community Hospital, Professor Kazi Kamruzzaman said: "The initiative taken by the government is praiseworthy. We are happy to see that the government has put emphasis on the use of surface water, for which we have been fighting for long."

Rain water, which is available in Bangladesh for at least four months, got priority among all the proposed temporary options recommended by water experts at two international seminars on arsenic mitigation in Dhaka, mainly because of its availability and cheap harvesting cost, sources said.

The water experts, who suggested imposing an immediate ban on the use of underground water for drinking purposes in the affected areas, recommended the water of dug wells, deep tube-wells, rivers, ponds and rain water as possible options for millions of people in 286 arsenic-affected areas in the country.

The government dropped other options due to high cost of surface water treatment and difficulties in digging wells.

Sources said the government under its emergency mitigation programme would provide one alternative source of safe drinking water for each village or city ward where more than 80 per cent tube-wells are detected as arsenic-contaminated after screening.

As part of the emergency programme the administration and public representatives of the highly contaminated area have been asked to provide one alternative source immediately after the survey.

The government suggested excavation of a pond in a highly contaminated village if digging out of wells and other options become difficult there, local government ministry sources said. The government is now providing arsenic alternatives to a number of villages in 41 sub-districts across the country, LGD official said.

He said screening of all the tube-wells in 60 sub-districts has already been completed and survey in another 147 sub-districts will start soon.