<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Residents of different areas in the city have been experiencing acute water and gas crises.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With the beginning of holy Ramadan, their problems have been aggravated further.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The areas include Mohammadpur, Adabar, Mansurabad, Kazipara, Shewrapara, Malibagh, Gulbagh,&nbsp; Mugda, Manda and Maniknagar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of these, the residents of Mohammadpur, Adabar, Mansurabad, Kazipara, Shewrapara, Malibagh, and Gulbagh are experiencing water crisis while the residents of Mugda, Manda and Maniknagar are facing gas crisis.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The affected city dwellers said the water crisis in their areas is so acute that they get water from Dhaka WASA supply lines after every three days.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"But when water comes, it comes along with sand", said Rumana Rahman, a resident of the Mohammadpur area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She informed them that they have lodged complaints with Dhaka WASA authority several times. But still the problem is persisting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Echoing the same, Maniruzzaman of Shewrapara said that they have to collect drinking water from alternative sources to meet the emergency needs as water supply from WASA lines is not available.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Sometimes, we get water from WASA lines at midnight but at a very low pressure", he told UNB.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Contacted Dhaka (Water Supply and Sewerage Authority) WASA deputy managing director (O&amp;M) Engineer A. K. M. Shahid Uddin admitted the problems.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But he claimed the problems have been resolved after receiving complaints from the consumers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Some of the pumps went out of order in those areas. We repaired some of those and replaced some others. Now, there is no problem of waters there", he told UNB.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shahid also said sometimes some consumers lodge verbal complaints to the media. But when we investigate, we don't find the authenticity of the complaints.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He also noted that sometimes, in-house pumps get out of order, but consumers complain against the WASA.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dhaka WASA officials, however, claimed that there is no gap between demand and supply of water in Dhaka city. Rather, production capacity is more than the demand for water, they said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Dhaka WASA data shows that currently water demand in Dhaka city is 260 crore liters per day while WASA's production capacity is 290 crore liters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But lack of a proper system to rationally supply the water sometimes creates problems when a deep water pump in any area gets out of order.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the existing system, it becomes difficult to recover the shortage of that area, he said.&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Every year in summer water shortage occurs in different areas of Dhaka. The main reason for this is the dependence on underground sources.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2010, 80 percent of the water produced by Dhaka Wasa was from underground sources, which are being drawn through deep tube wells and 20 percent was surface water.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Dhaka WASA planned to increase surface water production to at least 70 percent by 2021. However, the target was not achieved. Still 70 percent of WASA's daily water production comes from underground sources.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">About the gas crisis, Al Amin, a resident of the Manda area informed that most of the times of a day, the area remains without gas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We receive natural gas in the Titas pipeline only at midnight and it remains for 3 hours from 1 am to 4 am" he told UNB.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Titas gas officials admitted that the gas crisis is part of the overall shortfall in the national grid, reports UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Titas officials said the country's gas demand is about 4000 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) while the state-owned Petrobangla can hardly supply 2660 MMCFD leaving about 1400-1500 MMCFD as.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">bnbd24/fas</div>