BSS-38 Swiss delegation visits water management project in Rajshahi

478

ZCZC

BSS-38

SWISS-DELEGATION-VISIT (with picture)

Swiss delegation visits water management project in Rajshahi

RAJSHAHI, April 4, 2019 (BSS)- An eleven-member team, including a four-member high level Swiss delegation, visited the activities of water resources management project to see the living and livelihood condition at Barshapara Adibashi village under Godagari upazila in the district today.

During the visit, the delegation went round different dwelling houses of the beneficiaries and talked to them on how they are getting safe drinking water.

There are 54 ethnic minority poor households with 239 populations in the village. Only six of the households have small own lands, twelve other sharecroppers and the rests are engaged in selling labours in farming fields. All of them have been brought under safe drinking water source through commissioning of a submersible pump with an overhead tank in the drought-prone locality.

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) Project has installed the water supply infrastructure. The project is being implemented in drought affected 39 Union Parishads and three Pourasavas in Rajshahi and Chapainawabgonj districts since 2015 by DASCOH Foundation and Swiss Red Cross with financial support from Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation- SDC.

Head of South Cooperation Department of SDC Ambassador Thomas Gass and its Deputy Head Nathalie Semoroz, Director Cooperation Derek George and Senior Advisor of Embassy of Switzerland in Bangladesh Suzanne Mueller were the noted team members.

Principal Scientific Officer of Water Resources Planning Organization of Ministry of Water Resources Engineer Rezaul Karim, Senior Programme Officer of SDC Sabina Yasmein Lubna, Chief Executive Officer of DASCOH Foundation Akramul Haque and Programme Coordinator of IWRM Project Tanvir Hassan accompanied the foreign delegation.

Akramul Haque told the team that the scheme intends to supply safe drinking water in those drought-prone areas where acute crisis of drinking water exists. Its main objective is to supply round-the-year potable water to all people in the targeted area.

He also apprised them that there is a shortage of drinking water in the vast Barind tract during the dry season and the problem has become acute for the last couple of years making the marginalized women especially the ethnic minorities ones worst vulnerable.

In the wake of inadequate aquifer recharge, groundwater level is declining alarmingly in the high Barind tract posing a serious threat to its farming sector.

BSS/AH/MMR/MMA/1915hrs