Dutch consortium starts dredging project for maintenance urban drainage in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dutch consultancy firm Witteveen+Bos is lead member in a consortium of Dutch and Bangladeshi partners commissioned by Vitens Evides International to help tackle flooding problems in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.

Overdue maintenance on the urban drainage system is a main cause of the flooding problems, which are having a major impact on a significant portion of the city’s ten million residents.

The Urban Dredging Demonstration Project aims to reduce flooding by improving the urban water system and its maintenance in three ways.

Training, planning, organisation, publicity
First, executive personnel and management of the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) will be trained in all aspects of urban dredging.

DWASA’s capabilities will be further strengthened by supplying dredging equipment, implementing a sediment information system, and preparing a multi-annual plan for dredging work in Dhaka.

Second, proposals for organisational and financial reforms will be drawn up. Third and finally, a publicity programme will be set up to tackle the root cause of the problem: the way Dhaka’s residents dispose of their waste.

Dutch consortium
The consortium is led by Witteveen+Bos and also includes Tijhuis Ingenieurs and Nelen & Schuurmans for the Geographic Information System, as well as Bagger en Groenservice and J.P. Schilder to assist in dredging work and training.

The commissioning client is Vitens Evides International (VEI), a joint venture of the two largest public water companies in the Netherlands focused on deploying Dutch water expertise in developing countries.

The project is financed by VEI, DWASA, and the Dutch embassy in Dhaka. The project started in February 2014 and is scheduled for completion in May 2016.

This news item was originally published on the website of Witteveen+Bos.

 More information
Witteveen+Bos
Deventer, the Netherlands
+31 570 69 79 11
www.witteveenbos.com