The World Bank has earmarked $370 million to reduce water pollution by restoring rivers and canals in and around Dhaka.
The fresh financing comes under the Metro Dhaka Water Security and Resilience Program, which aims to enhance the capacity of local and national institutions to address pollution in greater Dhaka.
According to a press release, the programme will introduce a results-based system that will help both the city corporations and the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority achieve measurable improvements.
It will also provide safely managed sanitation services and improve solid waste management for 500,000 people, focusing on communities with the most significant service gaps.
“Waterbodies are the lifeline for millions of people in Greater Dhaka. But rapid, unplanned urbanisation and industrial growth have outpaced the city’s ability to manage wastewater and pollution,” said Jean Pesme, the World Bank’s division director for Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Currently, only around 20 per cent of Dhaka residents have piped sewer connections, with over 80 per cent of untreated wastewater discharged into the waterways.
As such, more than half of the city’s canals have either disappeared or remain clogged.
The industrial sector is also playing a significant role, with more than 7,000 factories releasing an estimated 2,400 million litres of untreated wastewater each day.
Besides, the programme will engage the private sector to scale up industrial effluent treatment and water reuse to this end.
Harsh Goyal, the World Bank’s senior water supply and sanitation specialist, said the programme will initially prioritise a comprehensive water quality index and digital real-time monitoring for four major rivers.
The first phase will focus on selected areas in Dhaka and Narayanganj, improving recycling systems and enforcing pollution-control measures to curb solid waste dumping and untreated sewage discharge, he added.
