Main Activities of Krishi Samabay Deptt. of GK

Water Supply

The south-west coastal region of Bangladesh has been experiencing acute shortage of safe drinking water and increase in salinity intrusion in surface and ground water over the past few years. Due to geographical disadvantage, this south-western region is commonly affected by cyclone and storm surges. The situation has become worse as intrusion of saline water gradually increasing day by day inside the coast which seriously affects ground water for drinking purpose. As a result, access to a sweet water supply for drinking purpose has become a question of survival day by day. At present, in the South west Bangladesh in some area most of the populations are mainly dependent on natural sources such as rain water during monsoon period and during other season on pond water which they preserve during monsoon for drinking purposes. There are few tube-wells in the pockets of deep aquifer which in most cases are hard to reach. Finding no other alternative, many also use bacteriological unsafe surface water only by boiling.

Pond Sand Filter (PSF) is one of the popular options of potable water supply in coastal belt. It has a slow sand filter unit to treat surface water, usually pond water for domestic water supply. The filter is installed near or on the bank of a pond. In some area tube-well is not successful especially in the coastal belt of Bangladesh because of salinity intrusion in aquifer to a depth of 700-1000 ft. (DPHE-UNICEF, 1989). Besides shallow tube-well contains high quantity of Arsenic hence the people in this area seek for alternative to ground water. This is why PSFs are popular option of drinking water in this area. The water from the pond is pumped by a manually operated hand tube-well to feed the filter bed, which is raised from ground, and the treated water is collected through tap(s). PSF is a low-cost technology with very high efficiency.

Considering the problems of drinking water in the southern Bangladesh and acceptance of people of the area toward using PSF, GK first started establishing PSF in Matbaria and Sharankhola during 2012-13 in support of the donor FSC, Since then up to 2019-20 the total number of PSF in that area raise to 163 nos.. After handing over of those PSF to the beneficiaries by GK , 6138 families having 29058 beneficiaries were getting the acceptable drinking water before up to 2019-20.