On Friday morning, Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Atiqul Islam was seen leading a clean-up campaign and evicting illegal occupants of the Lautala and Ramchandrapur canals in Mohammadpur of the capital.
Along with over 1,500 workers of the voluntary organization BD Clean, the mayor, wearing gloves, got into the Lautala canal and started cleaning.
Apart from cleaning the canal, the DNCC authorities smashed structures belonging to three illegal occupants of the Lautala and Ramchandrapur canals, including one under-construction 10-storey building.
The mayor said they will conduct the cleanup campaign and eviction of the illegal occupants regularly to restore Dhaka’s canals.
After watching the mayor’s activities, environmentalists in the capital praised the mayor but at the same time raised the question of what will happen to the other canals of Dhaka, which are vanishing day by day.
Number of canals decreasing every year
Experts said Dhaka City, which has been surrounded by rivers, canals and lakes since its foundation, had around 60 canals in the late 1980s. However, the number of canals is decreasing every year because of canal grabbers.
According to the Institute of Water Modeling (IWM), there were 50 canals in Dhaka in 2007-08.
The High Court Division in December 2017 directed the government to prepare and submit within six months’ ‘a time-bound action plan’ for the recovery and restoration of the capital’s 50 canals by demarcating their boundaries according to their original flows.
According to an inter-ministerial meeting in October 2020, a taskforce was formed in a coordinated manner with the officials of the Local Government Ministry, Shipping Ministry, Environment Ministry, Jatiya Nodi Rokkha Commission, Dhaka DC Office and Dhaka Wasa.
After visiting every canal of Dhaka physically, that taskforce submitted a report that said, at present, there are 38 canals in Dhaka. Among the 38 canals, Wasa was in charge of 26 canals but no authority was assigned for the maintenance of the remaining 12.
These twelve canals are Gobindapur canal, Gabtoli canal, Rayerbazar canal, Narinda canal, Dholai Khal, Jolkuri canal, Shampur canal, Kodomtoli canal, Aftabnagar canal, Gojaria canal, Atir canal, and Rana Bhola canal of Dhaka.
On December 31, 2020, the Dhaka Wasa transferred the responsibility of 26 canals, box culverts and drainage system to DSCC and DNCC. After that, the authorities took on a good number of projects to restore Dhaka canals but the outcome of these projects is still unknown to the city dwellers.
What do the experts say?
While talking with Dhaka Tribune yesterday night, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), said: “What the DNCC Mayor did today is a personal campaign, but a systemic action plan is required by the authorities to save the canals of Dhaka.”
She further said: “According to our data, once there were 54 canals in Dhaka. Every year, canals are being lost to canal grabbers.
She suggested that the government issue a public notice that illegal occupants of canals would be evicted within a certain time frame. “After that timeframe, the government should evict all the illegal occupants from the canals and the eviction cost should be taken from the canal grabbers. Why would the people’s money be allocated to evacuate the illegal grabbers?”
What does the mayor say?
While talking to reporters about the canal cleanup campaign, Dhaka North City Corporation Mayor Atiqul Islam said: “The canals of the capital will be cleared of pollution and encroachment in a bid to return to their previous form. We have destroyed the environment and now the environment is taking revenge. Even a little rain causes waterlogging, and the roads get submerged because water cannot flow through canals. The canals have been destroyed by pollution. We want the cooperation of the local people in restoring Dhaka canals.”
He further said: “Before this, I conducted operations in the Mirpur Paris Canal, Sutivola Canal. During the last two years, we have planted trees after evicting the illegally constructed truck stand on the Lautla canal in Mohammadpur. Today I started the campaign in Ramchandrapur canal. It is about three kilometres long and about a 100-foot wide canal. All illegal structures within the canal boundaries will be evicted.”
Mayor Atiqul Islam also said: 'We are gradually clearing the canal and clearing the garbage. But people are not stopping putting the garbage in the canal. Everyone says that the city corporation does nothing to solve the waterlogging. I would like to tell the residents that if they stop throwing garbage in the canal, there will be no waterlogging. Not only the city corporation, but everyone should take responsibility. We are cleaning the canal and now it will be the responsibility of the residents on the banks of the canal not to pollute this canal anymore.”
Responding to a question, he said: “We will not give any notice to vacate illegal buildings because everyone knows who built the buildings in the boundary of the canals. This canal is 100 feet wide and no one can occupy this border.”
