DUSHANBE, November 14, 2009, Asia-Plus — 70 percent of Tajikistan’s water supply infrastructure has become obsolete and requires serious repairs, the First Deputy Prime Minister Asadullo Ghulomov remarked at a ceremony of presentation of the Water Supply and Sanitation in Tajikistan Project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Dushanbe.
According to him, such a situation causes large drinking water losses and to solve this problem it is necessary to introduce new technologies and replaces old water pipes with the new ones as soon as possible. “All this requires large funds, but Tajikistan is now unable to do this on its own,” Ghulomov said.
Besides, tariffs set in Tajikistan do not meet operating costs and local waterworks incur losses. To add to the problems facing water supply infrastructure, water users do not pay for water consumption in proper time, he added.
“Subsidies provided by the government are not enough to cover all expenses,” Tajik official said.
One of the goals of the new Poverty Reduction Strategy for Tajikistan is to improve access to drinking water in the whole country. Some 75 percent of Tajikistan’s population lives in rural areas and only 52 percent of the rural population now has access to safe drinking water; meanwhile, only 3 percent of the rural population has access to adequate sanitation.
