The Water Issue in Bangladesh
Access to safe drinking water is one of the biggest challenges that Bangladesh is facing today, with almost 100 million people being at risk of arsenic contaminated water sources. It is an ambiguous issue as the population has always been bombarded with contrasting information regarding water safety, and the effects of arsenic often take years to exhibit; therefore, the majority of those consuming the contaminated water do not perceive it as a risk to their health. The frequent intake of arsenic contaminated water can lead to skin discoloration of a fierce, deathly black color, cardiovascular and neurological complications, and various types of cancer. The number of cases of arsenicosis has been rising since the 1990s, when the first cases emerged and pointed towards a high concentration of arsenic in the groundwater supplied by the tube wells. Tube wells are usually considered a solution to the problem of fresh water access—especially in developing countries around the world. Therefore, in the 1970s and 1980s millions of tube wells were installed throughout Bangladesh, with financing from the government and foreign AID support, which sought to provide the rural populations with bacteria free water. It is now estimated that 90% of rural Bangladeshis access their water through these tube wells, and yet there has been growing alarm about the continuing dangers of its water. These tube wells only descend less than 200 ft into the ground, which still exposes the people to the high amounts of arsenic. The Project Director of Grameen Veolia explained that by the WHO’s standards, water provided should be no more than 10 micrograms of arsenic per liter, and yet as many water sources throughout the country measure in around 500-600 micrograms/L, their national standard is still 5x that of the WHO, at 50 micrograms.
This concept of installing tube-wells reached Bangladesh in the late 30s and 40s, as people using river and pond water were dying from cholera and other water-borne diseases. A country-wide campaign was born to educate the population about the dangers of dirty water, which took nearly 40 years to create a general understanding that one needed to drink safer water. However, once arsenic was found in the government’s tube wells in 1991, they began to paint the spouts of unsafe water red, and for safe water they painted it green. While arsenic contamination was spreading throughout the country, the government refrained from telling the people not to use tube wells, and began telling the villages that if the wells were built at the 400-600 ft mark advocated by experts, that the water would be safe. However, adapting these wells is expensive and timely, and there are other harmful things present in the water—such as iron. These inadequate messages and indirect communications that reach the rural areas has been a major problem for new water treatment companies in Bangladesh. It surfaced regularly in some of our conversations in the villages when people explained that “the government protects” them from harmful water.
Enter: Veolia Water Ltd.
Veolia Water is a French company that has set the world benchmark in water and waste water services. Working in Africa, the Middle East and India, it has spent the last 150 years working towards its mission of helping to safeguard public health by ensuring a clean and safe water supply. On the other side, is the aforementioned Grameen Health Care Services Ltd. Launched in 2006 as a sister company of the Grameen Bank, GHS seeks to provide quality health care services to the lower income group of Bangladesh at an affordable cost. In order to fight arsenic contamination in the country’s groundwater, GHS and Veolia combined forces in a 50/50 joint venture in April 2008, to construct and operate water treatment plants in rural Bangladesh. These plants seek to provide the local populations with potable drinking and cooking water for their basic needs at very affordable rates.
Started as a research and development project of Veolia, the initial plan was to build five plants by 2012 to serve drinking water to 100,000 people. Following the same social business model as many of Grameen’s sister companies, Grameen Veolia Water Ltd. Is a non-loss, non-dividend venture and is sustained by the low rates collected from customers, with all profits being reinvested for further expansion and improvement.
Goalmari Plant: How it Works
With an ambitious plan to replicate the model across the country if the pilot project is a success, GV has begun targeting the most vulnerable regions in Bangladesh affected by high concentrations of arsenic. The first GV plant was constructed in the village of Goalmari, 50 km east of the capital city of Dhaka and began working in April, 2009. According to the Department of Public Health Engineering of Bangladesh, nearly 83% of the groundwater tube wells in the village are contaminated with arsenic.
With an initial investment of 18 million taka, the water treated at the Goalmari plant is taken from the nearby Meghna river, and undergoes traditional antibacterial treatment via activated carbon filtration and chlorination to be rendered potable. The plant’s capacity is 10,000 L per hour, and the water is distributed through 4km pipelines serving 11 taps throughout Goalmari Union. This pipeline network is to be expanded in order to serve the neighboring villages of Padua. At each of these taps a dealer (called a Grameen Lady) is in charge of selling the purified water at the rate of 2.5tk (roughly USD 0.40) per 10 liters. This rate ought to be compared to the price of a 1.5L bottle of water here in Dhaka, which is typically 20tk (unless they notice I’m American and I get a lovely discount of 100% mark-up).
When the CEO of Veolia initially approached Professor Yunus with the proposal of a joint venture, he was turned down until he agreed to working towards the goal of selling the treated water for 1tk per 10L. Since then, GV is working towards sustainability—amidst their many challenges—with the hopes of someday decreasing the current 2.5tk cost.
It was emphasized frequently that the water cannot be provided for free, as GV is a social business and not a charity, with many expenses such as manpower and treatment costs. However they have a joint agreement to bring the costs down low enough that no one should question the decision to buy water. Currently they have 21 Grameen Ladies who control the tap points throughout the region, and sell the water to the village people. For each 20L she sells, she gets 1tk, while the company gets 4tk. In this way, they have been able to provide some employment opportunities and provide the women a small commission. However, as many of your minds are probably racing as mine did to calculate the typical daily wage, it should be noted that these women manage these taps in addition to their other IGAs. The distribution points are often next store to their homes, so that in addition to selling the water they can operate additional businesses inside of their home. It is estimated that each GL can serve up to 50-200 households around the tap, and often sell 30L per household, per day.
The Year’s Challenges
Grameen Veolia has covered 2 villages, reaching almost 40,000 people so far, but have been presented with many great challenges as it is a very new concept. They have to create a culture of buying water in order to be sustainable. Many are aware of arsenic but its elusive long-term effects make it difficult for them to reconcile making the extra purchase. Therefore their three key challenges today include combating generations of habitually drinking arsenic water, tackling the price of the water to be available for the poorest of the poor, and working alongside a government that toys with the information that reaches the people.
It’s extremely important to the future growth and presence of GV that their outreach campaigns are strong, and that they gain the necessary support within the communities. Therefore they have been utilizing orientations designed for students, school teachers, local government, religious leaders and workers. Many of the promotional materials and posters that they use were strewn about the office, and were refreshingly clear in their message—despite only using pictures and diagrams to communicate with the mostly illiterate population. The Program Director explained that they have been fortunate enough to leverage Grameen Bank’s existing network in Goalmari, and encourage branch and center managers to educate the borrowers are arsenic, and explain the presence of GV in the community. He also placed special care to emphasize that they do not have a formal partnership with Grameen Bank that leads them to use Branch managers to push borrowers into buying from GV. It is more like means of encouragement and information from a respected source. Similarly to the inception of Grameen Bank, GV has been spending significant amounts of time working and orienting religious leaders about their business, as these leaders are perfect figures to disseminate information throughout the villages, and their trust is a nonnegotiable necessity. GV’s campaign dominates their agenda, as without it they will not have a market. After their opening ceremony of the wells, only 10% of the potential market was buying water, and that number in the past couple of years has only risen to 15-20% (oftentimes higher in the summer as the heat demands hydration). Therefore, current projections predict that at this rate they will not achieve sustainability for about 10 years. However, GV’s communication system has been steadily growing and uses an assortment of mediums to catch the villager’s ear. They have associates going to people’s homes, door to door, hold courtyard meetings and orientations, and invite strong figures in the villages to attend meetings.
When asked for a current evaluation of the pilot project, the program director said with a shy smile that it needs some time to be sustainable, as they are fighting the conventional system to provide water for free. However, the technology in place and the actual treatment process of the plant is running flawlessly, it is merely a behavioral change that the company must now work to produce.
I asked my supervisor Mr. Humuan if we can visit the Goalmari plant while we’re in Bangladesh, and he is currently arranging for us to visit their operations next week. I’m hoping to have an opportunity to speak with the teams orchestrating the orientations, as well as the Grameen Ladies that manage GV’s entire distribution network. And, even if Bangla or chance prevents me from any concrete conversation, I always chase after the opportunity to sneak away from Dhaka for a few hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment