A severe shortage of safe drinking water has gripped Pirojpur town ahead of the summer, forcing many residents to leave the area as supply collapses despite the district being surrounded by rivers and canals.
The crisis has intensified as ponds linked to the lone water treatment plant have dried up, disrupting supply to nearly 2,00,000 residents and reducing water delivery to less than an hour a day instead of the scheduled two sessions.
In some areas, water is supplied only on alternate days, severely disrupting daily life and pushing the long-standing crisis to critical levels over the past few months.
Pirojpur, a town with a history of over 150 years that gained district status in 1987, once relied on ponds and tube wells for drinking water, before the Department of Public Health Engineering launched a treatment plant in 1983.
Initial production stood at around 50,000 litres per hour, later rising to 3,00,000 litres, but this remains far below demand as the municipality requires around 9,00,000 litres of water per hour.
Pirojpur municipality Ward 2 resident Babul Khan said he spent around Tk18,000 to install a municipal water line but later disconnected it as no water was supplied.
“We depend entirely on the treatment plant as tube wells cannot be installed here, yet we are not getting the water we need,” he said.
Ward 4 resident Fazlul Haque said tenants are leaving due to the crisis, adding that two out of three of his rental units are now vacant because of the water shortage.
Pirojpur municipality water treatment plant employee Babul Hawlader said the crisis persists due to poor implementation of planned measures.
He said dredging the plant’s pond and replacing decades-old narrow pipes with wider ones could help restore supply.
Pirojpur municipality water supply and sewerage division Assistant Engineer Md Mehedi Hasan said the number of customers has risen from about 500 initially to over 10,000, while water sources dry up during the season, reducing supply.
He said a new water treatment plant project is under feasibility assessment, but implementation will take time and depend on funding.
