The two city corporations in Dhaka are struggling with their waste management projects due to a lack of sufficient land as well as obstacles created by illegal land occupiers.
The new mayors, however, are confident that they can overhaul the systems in six months.
Both Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) launched development projects to improve the capital’s waste management system in 2013. One of them, titled “Urban Public and Environmental Health Development Project,” was aimed at ridding the city of the toxic smell of roadside waste disposals.
Under the project, implemented by the Local Government Division and funded by the Asian Development Bank, the city corporations planned construction of secondary waste transfer stations around the city, while seven wards were selected in each city corporation to construct model secondary waste transfer stations.
The construction of the model transfer stations were supposed to finish in December last year, but it did not because the local land grabbers as well as local residents kept protesting and hampering the project’s progress by attacking the sites and vandalising and looting construction materials and equipment, DSCC Chief Waste Management Officer AHM Abdullah Harun said.
“The grabbers are politically influential – they have connections with several associated bodies of the ruling party. They instigate local people to hinder the project saying it would ruin the environment with the smell of disposed garbage.”
He further claimed that upon failing to obtain the approval of the Department of Environment, the DSCC cancelled three model projects in Gulistan, Dhaka University and Kalabagan. However, construction of other waste transfer stations have started.
DNCC Chief Waste Management Officer Captain Bipon Kumar Saha echoed Harun when asked about the project’s progress.
This correspondent visited one of the project sites at Panthakunja in Ramna yesterday, where the station was found to be incomplete with no construction work taking place. Despite that, the DSCC has already begun depositing huge amount of waste in the incomplete establishment.
Asked about the incomplete station, the DSCC official said the construction was halted by a High Court order resulted by a writ petition filed by Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) against construction of the station inside the park.
When contacted, both DNCC Mayor Annisul Huq and DSCC Mayor Sayeed Khokon said they were working to recover the stolen lands and the project would be completed soon.
Annisul told the Dhaka Tribune that the DNCC had already sought the help of the authorities concerned to set up the waste transfer stations properly.
“There are many land plots of different government bodies left abandoned for years. We need two to three kathas from those plots, and we hope that we will get positive response from the ministries concerned,” he said.
He further said the city corporation were planning long-term projects for waste management which would be implemented within two and a half years.
Sayeed Khokon said: “We are trying to recover the grabbed lands that were alloted for the stations, and we will be able to overcome the problem immediately.”
About the politically influentials hindering the project, he said the city corporation would take steps accordingly in this regard.
The waste transfer stations will be built on relatively higher foundation, with garbage containers on a 70feet-by-70feet raised platform to prevent rainwater from washing the garbage away, sources at DSCC and DNCC said.
The facilities will also include resting places and bathrooms for the workers; they will be enclosed areas and environment-friendly as well, officials said.