Can pay, will pay

The official ceremony marking the start of a legitimate water supply to a slum community in Dhaka.

Credit: WaterAid / Kazi Shamsul Amin

No one likes to receive a bill but, for residents in a Bangladesh slum, paying their first official water bill is something to celebrate.

Last month 185 families in Bauniabadh Kalabagan slum in Dhaka's Mirpur area began, for the first time, to pay their water bills legitimately to the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA). This was made possible following the first official permission in Dhaka to supply water to a slum community without the need for a guarantor.

Until now, DWASA has been unwilling to provide piped water supplies to residents living in what they regard as transient settlements. According to DWASA rules, they can only provide connections to households that can prove their legal status.

To try and resolve this problem, WaterAid and local partner Duhstha Swastha Kendra (DSK) stepped in, proposing to act as an intermediary between slum communities and the public water authority. WaterAid would fund a DSK programme to help set up Community Based Organisations (CBOs), which would oversee the maintenance of the waterpoints and collection of bills.

Trust has been built, but only very gradually. In 1992 and 1994 DWASA officials approved two waterpoints, but only on the express condition that DSK would pay up if the communities failed to. Through these two pilot projects, DSK quickly showed that, in fact, people living in such communities are willing and able to pay for their water.

WaterAid's Kazi Shamsul Amin says, "It is a misconception that slum dwellers do not pay their bills. In fact, most would much rather pay a fair price to the authority for safe, clean water than pay four times as much for suspect water sold by illegal providers."

The real breakthrough has come this year in Bauniabadh Kalabagan slum. For the first time DWASA has allowed informal communities, through their CBO, to apply for a water connection without the need for a guarantor. This represents a huge vote of confidence for slum dwellers everywhere, proving that they are indeed legitimate, reliable and trustworthy clients. This makes the prospect of long-term water supply to slum dwellers, without the need for intervention from outside organisations, more realistic.

The benefits for local people are clear. They gain access to safe water at a fair price and they no longer have to buy potentially unsafe water from illegal vendors. Local community leader Shahida Begum said, "By using and drinking contaminated water we became affected by various skin diseases and diarrhoea. Now we are free from all those dangers."

The breakthrough in Dhaka suggests that the years of painstaking trust-building and careful negotiations are finally beginning to bring real benefits to the people most in need.

The challenge for WaterAid now is to prove that this model is replicable. Already, three partners are working in Bangladesh's second biggest city, Chittagong, to help the urban poor gain access to public water supplies in a similar way.