The Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) has raised the water and sewer rates by five per cent since March, making per thousand litres of water costTk 3.70.

The rise had been 2.5 per cent from March 1 and the rest from June 1. WASA sources said.

The last hike in water rate was 25 per cent in 1993 and 1994. We should have raised the rates by eight per cent to adjust with the new power tariff to cope with the operational costs which rose by 35 per cent," a top WASA official said.

WASA provides piped water to 1.60,000 subscribers and less than one third of them get sewer facilities. It is finding it difficult to meet demands of the city

which remains perennially short by 45 crore litres per day .It has a daily output of some 85 crore litres.

"We are fighting a losing battle to provide water to the citizens of the metropolis whose ranks are being swollen by four and a half per cent annually by new migrants," the official said.

But the WASA's woes are not going to be over so soon as the work on upgradation of century -old water-works at Chadnighat would not be completed before March next year.

It currently provides 1.5 crore litre of water, treating surface water from the highly polluted Buriganga at Lalbagh. Under a Japanese grant it will be able to supply 3.5 crore litre of water in the old quarters of

the city.

But the citizens will have to wait to quench their thirst fully until the year 2002 when a World Bank-aided project to pipe water from the Shita-lakhya goes into operation.

The 172 million US dollar project is designed to supply 22.5 crore litre of water per day to meet the city's demand.

However, work on the project is yet to commence as the WASA is yet to complete all conditionalities on schedule. So far four conditions have been met and another will be met by June 15.

Tender for commencing the project is. however, being processed. Despite the preliminary progress, sources in the WASA remain sceptical about meeting the deadline for completion of the project by the year 2002. It may take few more years to complete the project, the sources added.

There are a few snags like updating the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the project. The latest EIA was done in 1992. But the river in the past five years ha's become highly polluted with industrial effluents. dumped liberally by different types of factories.

Also the availability of water in the river is in question that needs to be studied, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the WAS A is relying on harnessing the ac-quifer. Some 220 deep tubewells currently lifts water in different parts of the city with 70 horsepower pumps.

It estimates that it will have to install 150 pumps, including replacement of 60 existing tubewells, to meet the ever-increasing demands of the metropolis.

But most of the pumps, some 80, will be installed in the suburbs to relieve the city's ac-quifer under pressure to cope with the demands.

There had been fears that the underground water level had declined over the years, threatening its poorly built high rises in the event of a quake. Even WASA studies have forbidden Installation of any new pumps in the Motijheel area dotted with high rises to guard against possible dangers of such a scenario. the sources said.

Under the new plan MoU-Jhee) will get its additional supply from a new tubewell in Demra. which will be linked with the WASA system.