Collaborative efforts of all the government and non-government organizations concerned can be the best ways of ensuring drinking water to the marginalized people in the high Barind area.
Utmost emphasis should be given on making the water accessible to all, especially the poor and marginal farmers, as the water is a fundamental human right.
Targeted communities need to be involved in terms of adopting and implementing any water supply projects so that they can derive total benefits of those.
Water experts and researchers came up with the observation while addressing a stakeholder workshop on 'Developing a Scalable Governance Model for Ensuring Sustainable Functionality Drinking Water System in Bangladesh' at DASCOH Foundation Training Hall in the city today.
Assistant Professor Dr Badrul Hassan from the Department of Political Science in Dhaka University (DU) hosted the workshop sharing findings of a research related to water supply situation in some parts of Barind.
Centennial Research Grant of DU supported the workshop. He said the water supply related community organizations in the barind area should be effective for the sake of ensuring governance in this field.
In his remarks, Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan from the Department of Geology and Mining in Rajshahi University said there is a shortage of drinking water in the vast Barind tract during the dry season and the problem has become acute for the last couple of years making the marginalized women especially the ethnic minorities ones worst vulnerable.
In the wake of inadequate aquifer recharge, groundwater level is declining alarmingly in the high Barind tract posing a serious threat to its farming sector.
Superintending Engineer of Department of Public Health Engineering Shamim Ahmed and its Executive Engineer Muhammad Rokonujjaman and Chief Executive Officer of DASCOH Foundation Akramul Haque also spoke disseminating their expertise on the issue.
Akramul Haque said over 2.80 lakh drought hit-families, including 80,000 ethnic minorities in 1,280 remote villages, have been brought under the safe drinking water through commissioning of 390 submersible pumps in the high Barind tract.
The water supply infrastructures were installed on behalf of the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) Project being implemented in drought-affected 39 Union Parishads and three Pourasavas in Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapainawabgonj districts.
DASCOH Foundation and Swiss Red Cross are jointly implementing the project supported by Switzerland since 2015.
