When Max Social Enterprise installed a piped water grid in Krishnakathi village, Bangladesh, Khadiza Begum, 45, was among the first to connect. Her family invested BDT 20,000 (~€141) in a water connection, basin, and bathing chamber. Five neighbours followed. Within 16 months, 62 households across the village had collectively invested BDT 660,000 (~€4,664) in upgraded WASH facilities.
That scale of household investment did not happen by chance. Before the Building Water Business (BWB) programme arrived, Krishnakathi had almost no sanitation infrastructure: only 11 of its 164 households had any toilet facility, and none had basins or bathrooms. Groundwater sits as deep as 800 feet, making private boreholes unaffordable for most families. Seasonal flooding regularly contaminated ponds and tube wells with iron, arsenic, and salinity. Women carried the primary responsibility for water collection — a daily task that was time-consuming and brought significant health risks.
In January 2023, Dhaka Ahsania Mission, a partner in the BWB programme, facilitated courtyard sessions with the Dakshin Krishnakathi Community Support Group (CSG), of which Khadiza was a member. Using the RAINBOWS community engagement approach, facilitators led discussions on water scarcity and health risks, and the community voted collectively to adopt a piped water system. CSG members mapped the area and set shared standards for water use and hygiene.
Max Social Enterprise then installed the Max TapWater grid with a one-time connection fee of BDT 5,000 (~€35) and a monthly tariff of BDT 200-300 (~€1).
The investment decisions that followed were made household by household. Across Krishnakathi, 25 families upgraded pit latrines to offset latrines, 33 built new latrines, 47 installed basins, and 4 built new bathrooms — all within 16 months of the grid going in. Data from across Bharpasha Union’s 27 Community Support Groups shows what grid access makes possible: 88% of households in the 8 grid-connected CSGs met the programme’s Rank-1 standard for safe water access, compared to 5% in the 19 non-grid CSGs.
Md. Ashrafuzzaman Khan, Union Parishad Chairman of Bharpasha Union, has supported the grid’s expansion directly — collecting fees, arranging trade licences for local entrepreneurs, and coordinating with Dhaka Ahsania Mission. The Max TapWater grid operates under Max Social Enterprise’s tariff-funded maintenance model. The latrines, basins, and bathrooms that households built remain. Khadiza’s household, and the 61 others that connected, made those investments with their own resources — based on infrastructure they could see working around them.