EVALUATION OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION ON DRINKING WATER SOURCE IN SELECTED DISTRICTS OF SRI LANKA V.

Abstract

Study of consumer satisfaction toward the drinking water sources is one of the efficient methods to improve the water resource management. Therefore the study was aimed to evaluate the consumer satisfaction on drinking water sources in two divisional secretariat (DS) divisions namely Vengalacheddikulam from Vavuniya district and Uva Paranagama from Badulla district belong to dry zone and intermediate zone of Sri Lanka, respectively. With the available literature, question- naire was designed for the collection of primary data from randomly selected 25 re- spondents from each district while other needed secondary data were obtained from other relevant institutions. In addition, key person interviews (KPI) were carried out in parallel. The collected data were analyzed using the Microsoft Excel. The results revealed that the factors like education level (0.15, 0.46), monthly income (0.49, 0.825), employment (0.35, 0.824) and satisfaction (0.48, 0.87) have positive correla- tion with selection of water source such as well, pipe borne water, reverse osmosis water and spring, while age and gender of the respondents have negative correlation in the study area Vengalacheddikulam and Uva Paranagama respectively. Within the selected DS divisions, similar values of correlation coefficient between the cost of water and the selection of water source (0.4) were observed whereas it was deviated considerably for the factors like education, income, employment and satisfaction since people in the dry zone are willing to select RO water without considering much of other physical factors in order to avoid water related health issues. Considering the intermediate zone, correlation coefficient of 0.825 between monthly income and se- lection of water source is clear evidence for influence of economic status in water security. Further, KPIs confirm the prevalence of hardness especially in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. Moreover, government intervention in terms of subsidy for water treat- ment with adequate community involvement in operation and maintenance of water resources would be a sustainable measure to improve consumer satisfaction on drink- ing water sources.