DHAKA: Japan government will provide 1,486 million Japanese yen to deploy 150 waste collection vehicles in Dhaka and Chittagong cities.

The signing ceremony of the grant assistance on “The Project for Improvement of Solid Waste Management Equipment” was held at Economic Relations Division (ERD) of finance ministry on Wednesday.

Japanese embassy Chargés d'affaires ad interim Takeshi Matsunaga and ERD additional secretary Mohammed Abu Taher signed the exchange of notes on behalf their respective governments.

JICA Bangladesh Office chief representative MikioHataeda also attended the ceremony and signed the grant agreement for the project.

Since 2003, Japan has been continuously extending assistance, in several ways, to realize “Clean Dhaka”.

Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) have improved the waste management service based on “Clean Dhaka Master Plan”, which was formulated and implemented with Japanese support.

The sanitary landfill sites in Matuail and Amin Bazar were developed and 112 waste collection vehicles were provided.

In addition, Japan supported the capacity building of DNCC and DSCC officials through the technical assistance, and JICA volunteers have engaged environmental education for communities and students.

With these cooperation, the amount of waste collection in Dhaka has increased dramatically from 1,400ton per day in 2004 to 3,300ton per day in 2014, improving the sanitary environment.

The amount of waste is estimated to increase in Dhaka from 5,100ton per day in 2014 to 5,700ton per day in 2019 and in Chittagong from 1,600ton per day to 1,900ton per day during the same period.

This project would enable the city corporations to raise their waste collection capacity by 1,800ton per day and the waste collection rate would be risen from 65 percent in Dhaka in 2014 and 75 percent in Chittagong in 2014 to 80percent in Dhaka in 2019 and 98 percent in Chittagong in 2019.

BDST: 2020 HRS, MAY 20, 2015
BD/RR