Browsing by Author "Saha, Ratnajit"

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Assessing willingness to pay for safe drinking water in Tala union of Satkhira district, Bangladesh
(© 2016 Published by BRAC University, 2016) Dey, Nepal C.; Parvez, Mahmood; Saha, Ratnajit; Khan, AS Moniruzzaman; Rahman, Md. Sajidur; Khanam, Roufa; Khan, Md. Reaz Uddin; Barna, Milan K.; Islam, Akramul
The people of the coastal regioo of Bangladesh are facing severe difficulties in accessing safe drinking water mainly during the dry period. Tala upazila of Satkhira district is ooe of the most affected areas because of widespread arsenic contamination in shallow aquifer, salinity in ground and surface water, difficulties in extractiog saline free aquifer due to hard rocks/stooes and excessive iron. There is an acute shortage of safe drinking water in the villages of Tala mainly due to low accessibility and inadequate quality of drinking water. This paper has been extracted from the pilot study cooducted in Tala union in 2015 to identify local people's preference for drinking water sources, their preferred option for buying and willingoess to pay for access to safe drinking water as well as to find out the opportunity of existiog water selling business. Water pricing, as one of the most iroportant element to develop water selling business model, requires the information regarding the willingoess to pay and affordability of the users for access to safe drinking water. This paper focuses on the willingoess of the households of Tala to pay for safe drinking water according to socio-ecooomic class of the households. Data required to determine willingoess of the households to pay was collected from survey, FGD and Kll. All the households in Tala Union, 8613 in total was covered in the household census. The household census dsta revealed that the pipe water supply to households was the most preferred option by the local people for buying drinking water. However, a large percentage of households were willing to buy drinking water either from any specific place or if water is supplied to their house in gallons. On an average 60% of the households were willing to pay for access to safe drinking water. Most of the respondents were ready to spend Tk. 20 per week to buy safe drinking water. The positive respouse for willingoess to pay for safe drinking water was fouod higher amongst the non-poor respondent (71%) as opposed to the poor (58%) and the ultra-poor (48%). So it is pre!rY obvious that socioeconomic status has an effect oo household's willingoess to pay for safe drinking water. Households of different socio-economic class were willing to pay 3% to 6% of their respective monthly income to access safe drinking water. As most of the households are willing to pay for buying drinking water, entrepreneurship development for water selling business can be encouraged to supply safe drinking water with minimum cost; thus eroployment of scme local people as well as ensuring access to safe drinking water can be achieved at the same time. At the same time, the water selling business, which has already started in Tala, should be given more importance and its promotion, proper manageroent, technical support and supervision should be prioritized to ensure its sustainable growth.
Can a specially designed information intervention around the WASH-agriculture linkages make any difference? experimental evidence of behavioral changes and health impacts
(Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung (ZEF), 2016-04) Malek, Mohammad Abdul; Khan, Tahsina Naz; Gerber, Nicolas; Saha, Ratnajit; Mohammad, Ikhtiar
The paper attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of the specially designed packages of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions with ‘student brigades’ (student teams tasked with maintaining hygiene in school) on household WASH behaviour and practices in both a household and farm setting. In addition, household members’ health and developmental productivity outcomes were also examined. A randomized control trial (RCT) involving student brigades (SBs) was carried out in six sub-districts (hotspots) characterized by comparatively poor WASH indicators. The specially designed WASH-agriculture treatment consisted of three interventions: (1) informing the households about the prior water testing results; (2) delivering hygiene messages with the help of posters; (3) equipping SB members with water quality test kits and asking them to test the water quality at different places and report their findings to their household. Employing the difference-in-difference (DID) multivariate regression technique, the analysis revealed that the BRAC WASH treatment performed well in terms of effecting behavioural changes and improving hygiene practices. In addition, the results suggested that informing households of their drinking water quality and conveying WASH-agriculture hygiene messages to them could have a significant incremental impact over the existing BRAC WASH treatment in changing household hygiene behaviour and practices at home and on farms. This research provides evidence that students can act as agents of change in improving water quality, sanitation and health in a rural setting.
Geogenic arsenic and Microbial contamination in drinking water sources: Exposure risks to the coastal population in Bangladesh
(Frontiers, 5/8/2019) Saha, Ratnajit; Dey, Nepal C.; Rahman, Mahfuzar; Bhattacharya, Prosun; Rabbani, Golam H.
The study aimed to investigate the most usable drinking water sources quality and the dependent population's exposure to potentially contaminated water. The specific area chosen for the study was the coastal area in Satkhira district's Tala Upazila. Six hundred and fourty nine most usable drinking water sources were selected, that included Deep Tubewell (DTW), Shallow Tubewell (STW) and Pond Sand Filter (PSF) for drinking water sampling. Following standard sampling procedures, in-situ measurements were taken for seven important water quality parameters: Arsenic-As, Iron-Fe, Electrical Conductivity-EC, Temperature-Temp, Total Coliform- TC, E-coli, and Fecal Coliform-FC. In addition, semi-structured questionnaire surveys were conducted at corresponding dependent households (HH). Weighted arithmetic water quality index (WQI) was used to calculate the suitability of the derived water for drinking purposes. In the tested water sources, As, Fe and EC range were found 0–500 μg/L, 0–18 mg/L, and 165–8,715 μS/cm, respectively. Of all the tested water sources, 74% exceeded the permissible limit for As, 83% for Fe and 99% for EC, according to WHO standards. Comparatively higher percentages of Point of Uses (PoU) were found to be more contaminated than Point of Sources (PoS), such as TC found in 38% PoS and 54% of corresponding PoU, E. coli found in 24% PoS and 35% of PoU and FC found in 45% PoS and 55% of PoU. WQI suggested that the majority (72%) of most usable drinking water sources were found to be unsuitable for drinking. Thus, 40% of the population (0.12 million) in the study area were directly consuming contaminated water. Dependent household members most frequently suffered from fever, diarrhea and high blood pressure, resulting in the average household spending USD 3–13 per month/HH for health-related expenditures, which is higher than national average. To acquire safe drinking water, the majority (58%) of the dependent HH expressed willingness to pay USD 1 per month/ HH which is costly for them. The situation can be improved by installing a deep tube well for safe drinking water, periodically testing the water quality, educating the public for better hygiene practices, and providing entrepreneurial incentives to help deliver safe water to the public at lower cost.