Officials said here yesterday that the project would also support immediate improvements of the water supply, sewerage and storm water drainage situation in coordination with other financing agencies in the cities.

Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority and Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority will implement the projects.

For Dhaka Wasa, the project will focus on the rehabilitation of existing sewers to ensure full utilisation of the existing waste water treatment plant, rehabilitation of existing drains and natural retention reservoirs and construction of selected storm water pumping stations, improvement of WSS service in selected slums with the assistance of specialised NGOs, updating of the waste water and storm water drainage master plans; and assistance to Dhaka Wasa's performance improvement plan.

For Chittagong Wasa, as the government has approached bilateral agencies to finance an extension of the water supply system and there is no concrete proposal yet for improving waste water collection and treatment and storm water drainage, the project will mostly support an update of the master plans and the preparation of necessary studies for future investment projects.

Mitigation of the environmental impact of construction activities associated with the rehabilitation of existing and extension of new water supply, waste water and storm water drainage infrastructure will be identified and addressed in the Environmental Assessment (EA) and Environmental Management Plan (EMP).