This paper presented by Shri Sarit Datta Gupta, Chief Engineer, Rjashashi City Corporation, Bangladesh,e-mail : saritdg@hotmail.com & Shri Han Heijnen, Environmental Health Advisor, WHO Bangladesh,-mail : whosani@citechco.net at the “International Conference on Water Quality Management : South Asian Perspective”, organized by International Life Sciences Institute, India, held in Jaipur, during 11-13 April, 2002.
Major Constraints Affecting the Delivery of Services
characterized by insufficient revenue collection, which results in poor operation and maintenance, that in turn earns lack of confidence of the consumers in the supply system. The following major constraints that affect the delivery of water supply and sanitation services have been identified.
• Poor tariff structure
Most of the municipalities of Bangladesh con not meet even the operation and maintenance (O&M) cost of the supply system. One of the reason is that the tariff structure is poorly designed or not updated for a long time. The municipal authorities are afraid of being unpopular by raising tariff rate. As a result insufficient funds are generated which cannot even meet the required operation and maintenance cost of the system.
• Huge unaccounted for water
Proper operation and routine maintenance cannot be carried out for want of sufficient funds. This results in wastage and leakage from different points of the system. Unauthorized connection is also an issue of un accounted for water.
Wastage and leakage together with huge number of unauthorized connections contribute to reduction of revenue generation, which in turn leads to poor O&M of the system.
