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Water ATM booths are fast proving popular with townspeople as they find some respite from the often-contaminated piped water, officials said.
As the quality of booth water is quite good, the number of users is getting bigger and making it tough for booth operators to deal with users in peak periods.
Users said the fresh water they receive from the booths, run by Dhaka WASA, is not contaminated and they need not boil it anymore.
Even the price is affordable.
The FE found a good number of people collecting water from East Rampura and Bijoynagar booths on September 03 and September 05 respectively.
One Hasan was spotted carrying jars of water from East Rampura Water ATM Booth. When asked, he spoke of using the service for the past two years without trouble.
"The water of the booth is very good to drink. We need not boil booth water that we need to do when using piped water supplied by WASA," he said.
Khurshed, another user, spent too much on buying bottled water. But he skipped using bottled water soon after being a cardholder of the service that helps him save hard-earned money.
"I think the service should be spread to other parts of the city where low-cost drinkable water is a serious concern," he said.
East Rampura booth operator Atal said people here have welcomed this service with much enthusiasm as the number of cardholders is increasing fast.
"The number of our ATM cards has already finished. Now, they have given requisition of more cards as the flow of clients keeps growing," he added.
To avail the service, one needs to have a 'Water ATM Card' with non-refundable security money of Tk 50 only.
To get the card, a client is required to submit his/her NID card and two copies of their passport-sized photo.
The users can recharge a minimum of Tk 10 and a maximum of Tk 999 in their cards.
They can collect water in their own containers by using the card. Booths charge 40 paisa per litre water.
But one has to pay Tk 20 for the same quantity of water filled and sealed in bottles sold at shops.
Dhaka WASA is running the booths in cooperation with US-based entity Drinkwell since 2017 through a PPP (public-private partnership) arrangement.
Since then, the service continues to expand. The number of direct and indirect beneficiaries has risen to 0.26 million and 1.3 million respectively as of August 2022.
Drinkwell executive (quality control) Ahaduzzaman said they focused more on ensuring maximum quality with low costs that courted the public to take the service.
"We're receiving 10 fresh applications on average from each booth daily and the demand is growing," he said, adding that the demand is quite high in areas having complaints of contaminated tap water.
Mr Zaman said Shewrapara has the most-used booth users in terms of dealing the highest ATM cardholders with delivering the highest volume of water.
They have brought in six more booths for operation while several others are in the pipeline.
Drinkwell assistant manager (operations and coordination) Md Saddam Hossain Rony said Dhaka city has a total of 285 installed booths but 229 are in service.
He said the booths are installed within the premises of WASA pumps and 56 booths remain closed because of building work in these pumps.
"Once the work is done," Mr Roby said, "the booths will be in operation."
About card shortages, he said they used to import the card from China but US dollar's appreciation and container crisis to ship the consignment caused a delay in card distribution.