Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor, Sayeed Khokhon, says the time has not yet come to free cent percent areas of Dhaka city from water logging.
“We can’t assure you 100% city areas free from water-logging in the coming rainy season,” said the mayor.
“When an area is freed from water logging, another starts,” he said.
The Mayor made the remarks at a ‘meet-the-press’ programme, ‘Role of public representative in resolving water-logging in upcoming rainy season and citizen’s duties,’ at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity on Saturday morning.
“Due to lack of proper maintenance of box culverts, water flows very slowly… Maybe at 5 to 10 percent speed of the usual flow,” he said.
Condemning Dhaka’s Water Supply & Sewerage Authority (Wasa), he said: “When it comes to canals, they are filled up. Once there were 54/55 canals in the city, but now many of those can’t be seen, illegally grabbed by influential people. The few remaining canals are not even cleaned regularly. The lower parts of the city are clogged by sand used in construction.”
The flow of water around the city is bogged down, he said.
The mayor put emphasis on two factors to reduce water-logging: increasing the capacity of public service organizations, and public awareness.
“Lack of capacity means lack of administrative power, work force, funding… and lack of awareness on the part of city dwellers,” he said.
“Public service organizations have weaknesses beyond denial. The capacity of Dhaka North and South city corporations, and other public service institutions’ hasn’t increased with the growing population, economic development, infrastructure development, urbanization and businesses… So we are facing challenges in city management,” he added.
He identified ‘irregularities’ of the concerned authorities behind this weakness.
“When we focus on irregularities, we see its magnitude, happening for decades,” he said.
He urged the authorities concerned to provide administrative and economic support to meet manpower deficiencies and to increase public awareness.
Aggrieved, he said: “We find hundreds of thousands of plastic bottles filling up the drains. It’s happening wholly due to our lack of awareness.”
When asked, Sayeed Khokon told reporters that the main reason for this is a ‘weakened’ law that could not curb the production of polythene.
About the Chawkbazar inferno, he said: “According to the law, we could have fined the building owner Tk5 thousand only. If we executed the fine, citizens would laugh at us.”
The authorities concerned also don’t attend meetings meant to find a way to resolve problems.
