The High Court has expressed its displeasure as a report on the levels of pollution in water in different areas was not submitted.
The court has also ordered the submission of a report stating the possible cost of testing water of Dhaka WASA.
The orders were given by a joint High Court bench of justices JBM Hassan and Md Khairul Alam.
Dhaka WASA was supposed to submit a report on unsafe water on Monday (May 13) but WASA has said that huge funds are required to test the water.
Hearing this, the court expressing dissatisfaction, said: “Dhaka WASA has 11 water zones and it is perfectly possible to take two bottles from each area and carry out a test but the local government ministry is not listening.”
Recent reports in newspapers highlighted that WASA water in 16 areas was unusable, following which the high court ordered the water to be tested.
WASA requested seven days to submit a report on the cost of testing and the high court has ordered it to be submitted by Wednesday (May 15).
At the same time, the court has said that if the report is not submitted by Wednesday, the additional secretary will be summoned.”
Earlier, on Oct 11, 2018, the World Bank published a report which stated that around 75 million people in the country drink water from unsafe sources; 41 percent sources have harmful bacteria while 13 percent water has arsenic.
Based on that report, a writ was lodged by lawyer Tanvir Ahmed. Later, on Nov 6 last, the high court ordered the formation of a five member committee to test WASA’s water.