The Water Bill Is Not So High
Bangladesh’s low water tariff masks a widening divide in access and responsibility, as vulnerable communities face scarcity while wealthier groups consume more.
We all have, at one point or another, used or heard the phrase “as cheap as water.” It is such a commonplace saying that no matter what your social background is you’ll get the context. After all, in this country, water is among the most used and abused natural resources. In fact, that holds true for the majority of the world.
Since ancient times, civilizations have grown up centering bodies of water. “Water is life,” and water did beget life, and yet, it is water that is slowly getting the life choked out of it.
The Nutshell
- Water scarcity affects poorer communities most, while wealthier households often consume and waste more.
- A low water tariff in Bangladesh can encourage excessive use and obscure the resource’s real value.
- Billions of people worldwide lack safely managed drinking water or sanitation, and many face severe scarcity each year.
- The countries and industries contributing most to climate change bear much of the responsibility for worsening environmental crises.
Based on how we perceive the availability of water, our kind can be divided into two groups.
Group A values it, and also has the least access to it. They don’t care much about whether the water is clean or not. As long as they get some of it, they are happy.
Then there’s Group B, for whom water is such an easily available material that they not only abuse it themselves, but also do it on behalf of everybody else.
The unequal value of water
My neighboring building owners have set up a submersible pump, digging deep into the ground. But they didn’t immediately set up the whole thing, and instead they let the water run for multiple weeks to let out the "bad" stuff.
What struck me is that people, belonging to lower-income groups, were "let" to use the water my neighbors were simply pouring out into the road and down the drain. These people, kids, adults, elderlies alike, took shower, filled up jerricans or whatever containers they had. These are people who constantly face water crisis, power crisis, energy crisis.
My neighbors, of course, belong to Group B, and the people they are letting to use “their” water belong to Group A.
After this had been going on for a few days, someone from group A ceremoniously thanked group B, saying how their "kindness and generosity" will be rewarded by Allah.
A glimpse of a dystopian future
There's an Indian TV series called Leila. It takes place further into the future, where clean air and clean water are a rarity and thus enjoyed by the rich as a luxury. I recall a scene where a rich man illegally bought gallons of water to fill a swimming pool, and some law enforcers raided his home and arrested him for doing that. Of course, the main story is about much more gruesome things. But this one scene left a deep mark on me.
Now, in the context of the series, the events that took place in my neighborhood were nothing less than dystopian. Rich, well-off people abusing mother Earth's resources, while "letting" the unprivileged "enjoy" the spoils.
According to a 2018 BRAC Institute of Governance and Development report, the daily per capita water consumption in Dhaka was 360 liters on an average. It also noted the differences in the amounts of water usage in the posh parts of the city compared with the not-so-posh parts. It’s 2026 now, so the average daily consumption must have gone up.
However, in Bangladesh, the water utility bill is so low that it is indeed as cheap as water. We pay around Tk 18 for every 1,000 liters of water. Of all the bills we endeavor to pay every month, water bill is the least we worry about. But many countries across the globe are not so fortunate.
The cost of cheap water
A January 2026 report by UNU-INWEH declared the dawn of an era of global water bankruptcy, noting how nearly three-quarters of the world’s population lives in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water insecure. Around 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water, 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation, and about 4 billion experience severe water scarcity for at least one month a year.
The way the world is moving ahead, almost all the natural disasters humanity will face, and has already started to face, much of it can already be attributed to a select few groups of people.
The catastrophic events that unfolded along the Nepal-Tibet border over a week ago can just be taken as a precursor to what certain regions of the world might expect to face in future.
Those who pay the price
A 2025 EDGAR report listed China, the United States, India and the European Union the top four CO2 emitting countries in the world, contributing 33.12%, 11.69%, 7.96% and 6.21% respectively to the total global share. Meanwhile Bangladesh’s share was 0.31% and Nepal’s 0.4%.
Taxes/fines as a way to mitigate the impacts of climate-damaging activities is albeit comedic. Can the money earned save all the lives lost in the Nepal disaster? Can that money fill up the water reserves we are eating and wasting away?
AFP recently reported that US President Donald Trump’s fossil fuel agenda will result in the loss of $700 billion in clean energy investments over the next decade while doubling the power sector’s climate footprint.
It’s indeed funny how all the rich people, the global 0.1%, dislike renewables. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that their income comes from pollution causing sources.
Atanu Roy Chowdhury is a journalist and writer, who is consistently anxious about the future.