The World Bank has approved $47.50 million to improve the water, sanitation and drainage infrastructure of Chittagong.
The additional finance to the Chittagong Water Supply Improvement and Sanitation Project will help 650,000 of the city’s residents, it said in a press release.
The funds were allocated to “build water treatment plant, transmission and distribution networks and improve water distribution infrastructure, as well as prepare sanitation and drainage master plans for the city.”
“Only about half of the people in the Chittagong metropolitan area can access piped water and suffer inadequate sewerage and drainage that adds to the city’s water-logging problem,” said World Bank Country Director Qimiao Fan.
“This helps everyone, including marginalised slum dwellers,” he said.
According to Soma Ghosh Mollick, the World Bank team leader for the project, 65 million people in Bangladesh gained access to safe water between 1990 and 2015.
“Yet less than a third of the urban population has piped water, and the supply is often unreliable and intermittent.
Major cities like Chittagong face a growing population but have inadequate water infrastructure and service delivery capacity,” he said.
The project aims to help the Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (CWASA) to construct the Modunaghat Water Treatment Plant and Patenga Booster Pumping Station and a transmission line from Kalurghat to the Patenga station for greater production and improved distribution.
With these new funds, World Bank support to the project now stands at $218.50 million.
The project’s deadline has been extended from December 2018 to March 2020 to complete construction.
The credit from the World Bank’s International Development Association, which provides grants or zero-interest loans, has a 38-year term, including a six-year grace period, and a service charge of 0.75 percent.
Source: bdnews24
