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Chapter 5 Water
5.1 Overview
The area was supplied with hand pumps when the settlement was established. Hand pump water, in general, is
regarded safe as its source is groundwater, and bacterium is rarely found in groundwater. In addition, there was
no arsenic contamination detected in Dhaka city, which justified the system as an appropriate water solution,
as it was both safe and met the needs of the people of the settlement. However, as the groundwater table of
Dhaka city lowered, water scarcity related problems occurred, which led to the strong demand for piped water.
Subsequently, installation of piped water, under the project activities and partnerships, was established.
5.2 Sources and Use of Water
There are three separate big ponds in the area and a canal beyond the embankment. The people used shallow
hand pumps (groundwater) for drinking and cooking purposes during the early periods of the projects, and despite
the availability of pump water at that time, some of the people still used the surface water for all purposes.
A summary of water use practices of the families surveyed inside the blocks by source of water over the studied
periods (before 1995, 1996-1999, and 1999-Present) is presented in Figure 5.1. The detailed analysis of the sources
of water used and the practices conducted using these sources, by the families surveyed, both inside and outside
the blocks, are included in Table A-4.1 in Appendix 4.
As shown in Figure 5.1, all the families interviewed, both inside and outside the blocks, changed to the use of piped
water when it became available, and this was a significant improvement from their earlier water use practices, as
piped water was the safest option for them.
Even though there were, and still are, big ponds present, none of the families surveyed claimed they used it for
domestic purposes. Yet, based on the information gained from the focus group discussion, families from the
neighborhood outside the blocks, and a few families inside the blocks who did not have access to piped water,
were still using the ponds. However, some families who had access to piped water still washed cooking utensils
and heavy cloths in the ponds as piped water was only available for certain hours of the day, and if those families
could not finish their activities within those certain hours that the water was available, they had no choice but to
use the pond water. These particular families were most probably forced to carry out this practice because they
could not afford the costs involved in building a storage tank to store the water when it was supplied.
It was also ascertained from the focus group discussions that sometimes some families, though having access to
piped water, liked to bathe/swim in the ponds during the hot weather.
5.3 Acceptance of Water Provisions
In general, majority of the people claimed they encountered problems in accessing domestic water before the
installation of the piped water system in the year 1999 (Table 5.1). Before the year 1999, most of them used hand
pumps, as there was no access to piped water. They had to undertake physical stress to collect the water from
the pumps, and the stress was particularly severe during the dry season. They suffered from overwhelming pain
throughout their bodies, as they experienced great difficulty in pumping the hard levers. They experienced these
great difficulties as the groundwater table fluctuated between a few meters to more than 25 m quite often.
Furthermore, another problem was that the breakdown rate of a pump was high, and often people could not
repair it, so there were many broken hand pumps. Due to this problem, the residents of the settlement sometimes
had to walk for 10-45 minutes one-way to a pump, far from their settlement, that was barely working to collect
their water.
Fifty-seven percent of the people surveyed claimed that the water system was acceptable during the 1999-Present
period. Those who claimed problems during this period mainly mentioned that the water was not available in
adequate amounts in Block C and that it was only supplied over a few hours of a day. They also mentioned that
they had to replace or fix the taps quite often, as they were stolen or frequently broke.
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