In order to comply with the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade Plan (1981-1990), the Thai Government has set up a target that by the year 1990 not less than 95 percent of the Thai population, or more than 50 million persons, will be served with clean water, compared with 40 percent at the outset of the Decade.
However, in 1985, due to several constraints, the Provincial Waterworks Authority (PWA) revised its own target to cover only about 70% by the end of 1990. In 1988 it was estimated that about 2.883 million people in PWA's service areas or about 58.0 percent can be served by PWA's systems. If the number of population in service areas increases by 2.5% per year, PWA has to increase the number of connections at the rate of 12.62% per year for the remaining two years of the Decade in order to meet the 7 0% coverage target in 1990.
A budget of about 7,485 million baht (US $299 million) was allocated in FY 1980-89 for the expansion of water supply systems and services. It was estimated that the budget in 1990 should not be less than 1,950 million baht if the same target is to be accomplished. At any rate, there are still many constraints that could hamper the achievement, such as:
- –
inadequate water resources, both in terms of quantity and quality due, to a great extent, to deforestation and pollution from factories and farming activities, etc.
- –
inadequate manpower and equipment,
- –
inadequate budget.
- –
inadequate tariff, since the present tariff only covers operating expenditure but not future capital investments.
%20cropped.png?versionId=5945)