The twin evils of water stagnation and traffic jams continue to hold Dhaka residents hostage despite repeated attempts to bring them under control.
Ambitious government projects have failed to reduce waterlogging and traffic congestion in the capital because politically influential land-grabbers remain in illegal occupation of water bodies, open spaces, footpaths and roads in and around Dhaka, urban planners, local government authorities and residents said.
City planners said illegal occupation interfered with the natural discharge of rainwater, in turn contributing to gridlock on the roads.
They added that failing to free up footpaths and motorways from encroachment contributed to traffic jams.
Four bodies bear primary responsibility for maintaining the city’s drainage and traffic systems – Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) and the Traffic Division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
Land-grabbing causes waterlogging
Urban planner Professor Nazrul Islam, also chairman of the Centre for Urban Studies, told the Dhaka Tribune: “To fix the waterlogging problem, the authorities must first recover and conserve all water bodies – canals, low-lying land, lakes and rivers.”
“There is no alternative to recovering these water bodies – this is the only way to enable the proper discharge of rainwater,” he said.
Dhaka’s drainage network is composed of canals that discharge storm water into surrounding rivers. The city is protected from river flooding by an embankment that encircles it, but during the monsoon river levels rise higher than drainage water levels, experts say.
As a result, storm water fails to flow into the Buriganga, Turag, Sitalakkhya and Balu rivers.
At a Bangladesh Institute of Planners (BIP) programme, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) Professor Shahjahan Monda said encroachment had taken place in more than 3,000 places along Dhaka’s five rivers – the Buriganga, Sitalakkhya, Turag, Balu and Dhaleshwari.
“Illegal occupiers are usually influential people who use their political and financial power to manage the government machinery,” he added.
The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority has identified 7,154 individuals and organisations as encroachers.
According to Dhaka Wasa, a major part of its drainage system consists of canals, rivers and lakes to reroute excess water out of the city. It also uses a storm drainage network measuring some 261.39 square kilometres around the city.
The major canal systems serving the capital are the Degun-Ibrahimur-Kallyanpur canal that discharges into the Turag River, the Dhanmondi-Paribagh-Gulshan-Banani-Mohakhali-Begunbari canal that discharges into the Balu River and the Segunbagicha-Gerani-Dholaikhal canal that discharges into the Balu and Buriganga rivers.
Wasa sources said there were originally 65 canals, but over the course of time the number has come down to 43. Of these, some 20 canals have died out, many have been filled with garbage and others are being encroached upon by land-grabbers.
Dhaka’s two city corporations occupy an area of 360 square kilometres but storm drains cover just 280 square kilometres of the metropolis.
The city has box culverts stretching 10.5 kilometres with 913.63 kilometres of surface drains and 26 canals, ranging from 10 to 30m in width, running a length of around 60 kilometres. The drainage pipes have diameters ranging from between 450 and 3,000mm.
Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune on condition of anonymity, several DNCC, DSCC and Wasa officials said the capital’s underground drainage system was not adequate to handle storm water from heavy rains.
“The network needs to be expanded by at least another 40 percent. The drains should be properly linked through a scientifically designed network,” said a Dhaka Wasa official, asking not to be named.
The prime minister and shipping minister have directed the relevant government bodies to address waterlogging and traffic congestion in the capital.
But Dhaka Wasa, DNCC, DSCC and BIWTA have yet to demonstrate success in carrying out the directives.
Dhaka Wasa Managing Director Taqsem A Khan continues to attribute the city’s waterlogging problems to incidents of heavy rain.
“Waterlogging temporarily occurred due to heavy rainfall. To drain away the storm water we have installed pumps at different stations,” he said.
Earlier the Wasa boss claimed that Wasa operates just 30% of the capital’s sewerage and drainage facilities, with 70% of the infrastructure out of service due to a lack of funds.
Despite election promises to solve the problems of waterlogging and traffic jams, the capital’s two mayors, Annisul Huq and Sayeed Khokon, have yet to deliver.
DNCC Mayor Annisul Huq told the Dhaka Tribune that he had directed city and Wasa officials to take steps to resolve the problem.
“We have purchased equipment to clean the city corporation’s drains,” Annisul said.
Annisul said he had met civil society members and urban planners to exchange ideas about creating a Green Dhaka.
DSCC Mayor Sayeed Khokon said: “We have taken temporary steps to deal with waterlogging.”
He said the existing drainage system was not adequate to deal with heavy rain, adding: “A deep drainage system will be constructed after demolishing the surface box culverts.”
<b>Reclaiming occupied footpaths, roads<b>
Despite big-ticket road projects like the Gulistan-Jatrabari flyover and the Kuril flyover, traffic jams, sometimes lasting for hours, are a daily fact of life in the capital.
Urban planners said traffic congestion would not ease unless the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakskha (Rajuk) – the capital improvement authority, the two city corporations, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and the relevant ministries co-ordinate their efforts.
At a meeting held shortly after the mayoral polls, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Dhaka North city Mayor Annisul Huq and Dhaka South city Mayor Sayeed Khokon agreed to take steps to remove illegal encroachers from the capital’s footpaths and roads. But the initiative has not yielded much success.
Annisul told the Dhaka Tribune that removing illegal occupants and land-grabbers was a complex procedure and would only be successful if a long-term plan was put into effect.
Professor Nazrul said: “Urbanisation and traffic management in Dhaka city is completely unplanned. Roads and footpath occupiers must be removed in the situation is to improve.”
“In the long term, the government must seriously work on decentralisation … without this traffic congestion will likely intensify in future,” he added.
“Dhaka has the highest rate of urbanisation – at 90%,” he said.
Professor Dr Sarwar Jahan of Buet said: “Dhaka has become unfit for living because of the enormous rate of migration to the capital.
“About 15 million people live in and around Dhaka. If the government does not take strong measures to decentralise the country, no effort to reduce traffic congestion will be successful.”
The government has taken steps to make commuting in the capital a more tolerable experience including introducing special bus services, CCTV-aided surveillance systems, bans on old and unfit vehicles, setting up new school and office schedules and implementing automated traffic signals.
The government has embarked on a massive building programme to enlarge the carrying capacity of the city’s infrastructure, constructing link roads, flyovers, a bus rapid transit system, elevated expressways, and a metro rail transit system.
It has launched a water bus service in the rivers surrounding the city.
