Dhaka WASA (Water and Sewerage Authority) will increase water price by five per cent per thousand litre from July 1 this year.

The increased price will be Tk 5.25 for a thousand litre of water for residential supply while Tk 17.50 per thousand litre for commercial supply instead of the previous rates of five Taka and Tk 16.54 respectively. After the price hike, those who pay Tk 300 in monthly water bills will have to pay Tk 315.

"We have increased the price due to new government pay scale. Pump maintenance cost has also increased," said WASA managing director ANH Akhter Hossain. "We have raised the rates after one and half years and that too is also very negligible, " said the WASA MD.

However, subscribers in the city will be counting extra money for water for the fourth time under the present government.

The water price for clients without metres will increase by Tk 3.3 per thousand litres. Residential clients without metres will have to pay 31.97 percent instead of 34 per cent while it will be 37

per cent instead of 35.54 per cent for commercial use.

It is believed that the price hike will benefit the clients who are getting water from WASA without owning a metre.

According to WASA, a total of 2.16 lakh household clients are buying its water. The demand of water is 160 crore litre a day. WASA, which produces 145 crore litre a day, can barely meet the demands of the city dwellers especially during summer when there is a shortage of nearly 50 crore litre each day.

"This crisis worsens when the elec-

tricity go off for a long period of time. The introduction of the mathematical model of system and meter monitoring to minimise the system loss will improve the situation including bill collection," said the managing director of WASA.

At present WASA supplies water with the help of the Saidabad Water Treatment Plant, three water treatment plants close to Narayanganj district and 412 deep tubewells. Out of those 412, only 230 deep tubewells have fixed generators.