"The pump near the Mohammadpur police station, which has a capacity of supplying 1500 litre everyday, has gone out of order as its filter is not working. From June 7, the pump has been pulling up sand instead of water," said Rafiqul Islam executive engineer of Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA)'s Zone 3 regional office in Lalmatia.

He added that before the water crisis started they had tried to set up an alternative pump but after digging up to 250 feet, work had to be stopped for technical reasons.

"We are trying to set up another pump in a different spot to overcome the problem. But it would take at least one and half months to start the work," said the executive engineer. He said that they were thinking of alternative sources to continue supplying water to the affected areas.

Residents of Sobhanbagh and Dhanmondi Road 14 are suffering the most as they have been virtually without water for the last seven days.

"The little water we get everyday can not meet even one tenth of our daily requirement," said Shirin Ahmed, a housewife.

The residents complained that they were facing delays in buying water from the WASA also.

"I had submitted my demand for three trucks of water on June 1 and only received the water after four days," said Robin Hasan, caretaker of an apartment on Dhanmondi Road 14 (new).

The WASA authorities admitted the crisis and said they were trying to supply at least fifty percent of the daily demand.

"We have a capacity of supplying only 30 tanks of water by our trucks while the everyday demand is not less than 200 tanks. So we have to supply water serially," said Rafiqul Islam.

The residents said that shortage of supply was going on for more than a year. But the situation had deteriorated from the last week of May.

Commercial subscribers too are suffering. There are two community centers, a hospital and a number of private firms in the locality.

"During the peak business hours, we do not get continuos supply of water and it annoys our guests," said Chowdhury Shamsul Islam, manager of Sobhanbagh Community Centre.

Water scarcity affects more than 50 percent of the city's population everyday, especially during the dry season. WASA depend on ground water for 82 percent of its total supply while only 18 percent come for the four water treatment plants.

"Until we can reduce the dependency on ground water, the overall situation will not improve. More surface water should be used for human consumption and other purposes but the government is somehow indifferent to the issue," said a high official of WASA.