ADB to fund Dhaka water scheme

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a US$ 250 million loan improve water supplies to Bangladesh’s capital city Dhaka. The city is home to 11 million people and is struggling to meet the water needs of its booming population, according to the ADB.

The US$ 675 million Dhaka Environmentally Sustainable Water Supply Project will develop a new raw water intake at the Meghna River, about 30 km east of the city, with a pumping station that has the capacity to provide 2 billion litres of water a day. It will also fund a treatment plant at Gandharbpur capable of handling 500 million litres a day, and install raw and treated water transmission pipelines.

These initiatives are expected to reduce groundwater extraction by 150 million litres a day and help the city water authority raise its overall surface water supplies to 1.9 billion litres a day by 2021.

The goal is to provide twenty-four-hour water supply to all connected households in the six service zones of the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority and reduce the dependence on groundwater to 30% of total water supply from 100% in most of the zones now.

The project will cost nearly US$ 675 million with ADB’s loan coming from its concessional Asian Development Fund. ADB will partially administer a $100 million loan from Agence Française de Développement, with the European Investment Bank (EIB) also providing a cofinancing loan of US$ 100 million. The Government of Bangladesh will provide almost US$ 225 million.

The project is expected to be completed by December 2019.