Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) is in desperate need of funds to implement its sewerage network project to divert solid industrial waste from Tejgaon to the Pagla Sewerage Treatment Plant (PSTP).

Over the last three years, Wasa has repeatedly sought emergency assistance from foreign aid organisations to build the sewerage network as the large volume of waste is threatening the people living on the city edge. But the effort has sofaryielded no results.

For years, highly toxic waste disposed from factories in the Tejgaon industrial area has travelled through Wasa's Begunbari canal poisoning

cultivable land on its banks and contaminating rivers like Devdholai in Trimohoni, Balu and Sitalakhya.

Inhabitants of Lionhati, Nasirabad, Dasherkandi and some 33 villages had to bearthe brunt as rivers, canals and cultivable land slowly turned into an environmental nightmare because of the indiscriminate dumping of industrial waste.

Now about half a million people of the 36 villages and thousands of acres of land could get a new lease of life if the government grants the funds to divert waste from Tejgaon to the Pagla treatment plant.

Wasa has approached the government for Tk 189 crore on an emergency basis for the

network. The sewerage system, a part of Dhaka city's phase-1 development work, will cover an area of nearly 10 kilometers from Tejgaon to Pagla.

Earlier, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) had agreed in principal to provide the nearly Tk 200 crore budget. A feasibility study was done but JICA suddenly decided against financing the project last year. The Economic Relations Department (ERD) of the Finance Ministry is still believed to be in negotiation with JICAin obtaining funds.

Another proposal was sent to the Planning Commission but Wasa did not receive any response.

Sources said that the WASA has emphasised on installing the sewerage trunk line first and

foremost. Due to the absence of a sewerage network in the city, the WASA is unable to drain out enough waste to the Pagla Sewerage Treatment Plant (PSTP). Without the network the PSTP is only performing 45 percent of its recycling capacity.

Environmentalists believe that the project could have a highly positive impact on the professional community of the affected areas along the polluted rivers.

The waters of the rivers ares filled with toxic waste that it is now totally devoid of any aquatic life. Only a few years ago the land on either side of the rivers was fertile.

The fishermen have long become extinct while thousands of farmers who used the water from the rivers for irrigation are facing unemployment.