Dhaka South City Corporation Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh has finally pledged to do what residents of this city have been long been hoping for, declaring that no more garbage or waste would be allowed on roads or public open spaces.
For the longest time, our capital and largest city has been associated, for many, with unmanageable amounts of rubbish, which are rarely disposed of properly. Time and again, city corporations have tried, but the scope of the problem has always been too overwhelming. Dhaka is often ranked as one of the least liveable cities, and this is in no small part due to the garbage, which makes many public places so unpleasant, while footpaths are often unwalkable due to pervasive littering.
Taposh’s initiative has focus and vision, with garbage collectors now collecting waste products from house to house, starting at six o’clock in the evening in each ward. All waste material will then be transferred to the Intermediate Waste Transfer Centre (STS) by 10pm, from where it will be taken to Matuail waste disposal site.
Furthermore, the mayor has a plan to clean the streets of the city each night, so that they are ready for the public by 6am each morning.
A plan is all well and good, but now comes the hard part -- implementation. Suffice to say, promises have been made before, and some plans, after an initial early period of success, have fizzled out. For example, an earlier plan to have dustbins installed all over the city later became problematic when a large number of these bins went missing with the authorities having no explanation.
Let us stick to the plan this time. We cannot give up, no matter how steep the challenge, on our dream of a clean and liveable Dhaka.
