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Setting an example

Staff Correspondent
***Brotee's treatment plant distributes drinkable water among people in 3 C'nawabganj villages; 100 villages under 4 upazilas in Rajshahi, Naogaon free from child marriage***
A decade ago, locals of Chamagram, Laharpur and Laxmipur under Chapainawabganj Sadar upazila used to face a severe crisis of pure drinking water because groundwater in the three villages was highly contaminated with arsenic.
Thanks to a modern facility known as Ecological Surface Water Treatment Plant (ESWTP), they could overcome the crisis.
In 2010, development organisation Brotee built the plant that treats water of the river Mahananda. The drinkable water is distributed among villagers through a 6.6km pipeline.
Brotee officials came up with the success story during a seminar yesterday at Bangla Academy in the capital. It arranged the seminar to mark the 17th anniversary of its development activities.
They also shared success of another one of its initiatives - creating awareness on preventing child marriage among people in four upazilas. The upazilas are Tanore in Rajshahi; and Manda, Niamatpur and Mahadebpur in Naogaon.
As a result, 100 villages under the upazilas were freed from the clutches of child marriage in 2017, said Sharmeen Murshid, chief executive officer of Brotee.
She said although they could eliminate child marriage from the villages, they still have more works to do as some still want to marry off their under-aged children secretly.
On the water treatment plant, she said after four years of research the water treatment plant went on trial in 2008 and became fully operational two years later.
Each day, about 3 lakh litres of water is
distributed among the inhabitants of the three villages, who have to pay Tk 320 to Tk 350 as a monthly household tariff, she added.
"The plant can produce about 7 lakh litres of water per day and meet the demand of seven villages," she added.
AH Khan, a scientist who worked in the project, said ESWTP is a proven technology in several countries. Egypt used it in 2000 to treat the water of the Nile river.
During the seminar, some of the villagers also shared their stories on how they were benefited from the initiatives taken by Brotee.
Parul Khatun, a person with disability from Naogaon, said her family wanted to marry her off when she was in eighth grade. But with the help of locals, who were involved with the activities of Brotee, she stopped the marriage. Parul recently completed her degree (pass course) examinations from a college in Naogaon. She also tutors students.
Rina Roy, director of rights organisation Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), which supported Brotee in the projects, said the government needs to look into the provision which allows child marriage on "special circumstances" in the Child Marriage Restraint Act-2017.
Praising Brotee initiatives, Zafar Ahmed Khan, senior secretary of the Local Government Division, said sustainable development could be achieved through building coordination among the local government, NGOs and civil society members.
Abul Kalam Azad, principal coordinator on SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) at the Prime Minister's Office, said Brotee's success in treating water at the plant could be implemented in other areas of the country where people have been facing a similar crisis of pure drinking water.
He said such success has to be scaled up at the national level. That way, a large number of people would be benefited.
M Hamid, former director general of Bangladesh Television and an adviser to Brotee, presided over the programme.