Replying to a question from treasury bench member Manirul Haque Chowdhury, the minister said the BNP government had ensured pure drinking water to 98 per cent of the population during its tenure in government from 1991 to 96.But pure drinking water could not be supplied as tubewell water was contaminated with arsenic.

He said the government had in the meantime implemented various projects to provide arsenic-free water. He said arrangements are being made to provide pure drinking water in the contaminated areas through pipelines under a pilot project.

He said at present there are two lakh 10 thousand subscribers of Dhaka WASA. He said daily production and supply capacity of WASA is 152 crore litres while actual production and supply is 145 crore litres.

Replying to another question from Hafiz Ibrahim, Bhuiyan said as per a survey a total of 5,20,341 tubewells in 59 upazilas were contaminated with arsenic. He said that survey would be carried out in another 147 upazilas soon. He told the House that 80 thousand field workers would be imparted training to conduct the survey.

He listed various steps to solve the problem which include testing tubewell water of all upazilas, creating public awareness, identify patients with primary symptom, supply of pure drinking water on emergency basis in arsenic contaminated areas and taking step to survey the arsenic level.