Dr. Iftekhar Uddin Chowdhury
Professor,Department of Sociology,
University of Chittagong, Bangladesh

1. The City

Chittagong is the second largest and main port city of Bangladesh. Declared the ‘Commercial Capital’, it began as a tiny municipality on June 22, 1863. It Occupies 155km2, with a population of about 3.6 million. There have been developments in education, health and waste management, but overall urban development of the city has been jeopardized by urbanization without proper industrialization.
Problems in the city include mass poverty, gross inequality of income, high unemployment and under employment, illegal settlements with primitive facilities, over crowded housing and proliferation of slums and squatters, and lack of adequate supplies of pure drinking and clean water for household use and electricity. There is also overloaded public transportation, traffic congestion, accidents, violence, crime, social tension, air, water and noise pollution, and rampant diseases linked to an unhealthy environment.

Water is primary and indispensable to all life forms, agriculture, industry and everyday survival. Chittagong Water management is governed not by Chittagong City Corporation (CCC), but by The Water and Sanitation Authority (WASA). WASA supplies 40 million gallons per day (MGD) of potable water to the city, but 100 million are required. 19 million gallons of surface water (47.5% of the total supply) is managed by The Mohara Water Treatment Plant, and the rest is from 70 deep tube-wells under WASA.

The Mohara Water Treatment Plant treats Halda River Water, and The Kalurghat Iron Removal Plant treats raw water from different deep tube-wells. The demand is somehow met by approximately 5000 privately owned deep tube-wells, or lakes, ponds, rivers, rain etc. The quality of the urban neighborhood environment largely depends on sanitation, sewerage, drainage, solid waste disposal and water supply, the situation of which is really very unhealthy and frustrating in the case of Chittagong.

The sewerage and sanitation system depends on the Septic tanks, water/seal or other arrangements. According to a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) report, 4.36% of sewerage in the urban areas of Bangladesh is municipal, 35.25% is septic tank, 20.85% is water/seal and 26% is through other systems. A recent survey (yet to be published) shows that about 82% of the respondents are unsatisfied about sewerage, 32% about water supply and 27% about sanitation facilities in Chittagong.

The insufficient amount of water supplied by WASA from The Halda River and deep tube wells means that half or more of the city’s needs are supplied by other wells or surface water whose quality is not known. On the sanitation side, there is no central sewerage system. The majority, 85% of households and establishments, use individual septic tanks; the rest use more primitive systems. There are some 443 miles of open drains connected with 5 canals that carried a great deal of untreated wastes.

There is much to be done to develop a more adequate water environment in Chittagong. Unfortunately, the city is now in something of a political stalemate, making it difficult to develop a plan of action of the magnitude the city needs for its water and sanitation.  At this time, we shall try to organize some educational and community campaigns to mobilize the citizens to do what they can to help clean the water ways and reduce pollution.  

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2. The Proposed Action Plan

Extensive discussions will be held with the acting Mayor, educators and community leaders to determine what kind of campaign can be developed and how it should be done.  This will lead to specific plans, generation of a budget and a search for financial resources. Then the educational campaign will be launched using a wide variety of techniques, such as essay contests, competitions and debates to help build awareness of the problem and show school children and citizens how they can help reduce pollution and conserve water.

Key Constraints:

1. Lack of technical and financial resources.
2. Lack of administrative coordination and collaboration among the agencies responsible for providing basic facilities.
3. Weakness of leadership and lack of commitment and initiatives.
4. Lack of awareness among communities and city dwellers.

Goal:

Generate leaders/ policy makers’ and citizens’ awareness to address 3 Rs – Reduce, Recycle, Reuse.

Objectives:

1. Carry out situation analysis through SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) approach.
2. Design activities and steps to be taken.
3. Frame effective committees for implementing activities and follow up.

Actions:

1. Prepare a brief paper/ note to discuss with Acting City Mayor about the issues/ lessons learned at this workshop.
2. Take steps to make Mayor understand about forming a Cell/ Committee for coordination and collaboration concerning activities relevant to environment, water and sanitation.
3. Convince the Mayor to prioritize the relevant activities and design plan to implement those activities on the basis of immediate, short and long term action plan.
4. Convince the Mayor to take active and effective initiatives to involve schools, communities, NGOs, civil forums to address the issues immediately, particularly in terms of the 3 Rs – Reduce, Recycle and Reuse.
5. Organize a gathering of university/ college/ school teachers, students, NGOs and civil forums to discuss the issues and identify the steps to be taken by respective stakeholders, and form a non-government initiative.
6. Develop networking with different embassies including Japan, donors and NGOs to find technical and financial support for implementing activities, especially for IEC (information, education and communication) programs in the institutions and communities.
7. Seek guidelines from AUICK when and where necessary.

Time Frame: June 2007-August 2008