Rajshahi Water Supply and Sewerage Authority incurred a loss of Tk 41 crore in the past five years due to non-revenue water loss, according to the audit report of the state-run organisation.
The documents show that the present non-revenue water loss of Rajshahi WASA is 29.87 per cent of the organisation鈥檚 total production, although officials and experts stress that the water loss should never be more than 10 per cent.
According to WASA officials, the daily demand for water in Rajshahi city is about 13.50 crore litres but the utility agency can produce 10.7 crore liters. As a result, the city witnesses a shortage of 2.8 crore litres of water a day.
The documents show that about 3 crore litres of the produced water are lost every day due to leakage, wastage, or theft, causing a yearly loss of Tk 9.87 crore.
In the 2023-24 fiscal year, Rajshahi WASA earned about Tk 15 crore and spent Tk 22 crore, according to the officials.
In February 2022, Rajshahi WASA tripled the water price to adjust the production cost.
At present, Rajshahi WASA spends Tk 8.90 to produce one unit, or 1,000 litres, of water.
It lifts groundwater using 103 deep tube wells and supplies the water through a 612-kilometer network of pipelines at Tk 6.81 per unit for domestic consumers and Tk 13.66 per unit for commercial consumers.
Parvez Mamud, the chief engineer of Rajshahi WASA, told 抖阴精品 that the main reasons for the non-revenue water loss are faults in supply lines and illegal connections used by different government and non-government establishments and influential individuals.
He said that they could not identify the establishments and individuals and the volume of water being consumed illegally as they did not have any metered system.
Rajshahi WASA chief revenue officer Mehedi Hasan said that they had primarily identified 1,800 illegal connections and sent letters to them to legalise the connections.
鈥業t is not the final statistics as new illegal connections are being identified every day,鈥� he said.
At present, Rajshahi WASA has valid connections to 50,189 households.
Niamul Bari, a professor of civil engineering at Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology, told 抖阴精品 that the non-revenue water loss of a city should never be more than ten per cent.
He said that WASA authorities should find out the illegal connections first and take legal action.
鈥楾he authorities should also check the faults in the water supply lines as it causes a huge amount of water loss every year鈥�, he added.
鈥業nstead of taking effective actions in reducing non-revenue water loss, WASA authorities are increasing the water tariff, which can never be accepted,鈥� Sushashoner Jonno Nagorik鈥檚 Rajshahi district unit coordinator Mizanur Rahman said.
Md Zakir Hossain, managing director of Rajshahi WASA, told 抖阴精品 that they were also concerned about the non-revenue water loss.
鈥榃e have recently conducted a survey of introducing District Metered Areas at the field level to reduce the non-revenue water loss,鈥� he said.
We have sent a Development Project Proposal to the government as a huge amount of funds from the government is needed to introduce this DMA system. The non-revenue water loss will be reduced to below 10 per cent if the system can be introduced,鈥� he added.