With the monsoon season upon us, our chronic water-logging issues are once again upon us. It is truly disappointing that, despite years of promises, plans, and above all, hundreds of crores spent on new drains and culverts, just about every part of the capital gets routinely submerged after even moderate rainfall.
The result is the all-too-familiar feeling of dread and misery: Commuters stranded for hours, homes flooded, and of course, our already suffocating traffic brought to a literal standstill.
We need to stop dismissing this regular occurrence as a minor inconvenience when it is so much more than that. It is - and has always been - a major urban crisis that undermines the daily lives and economic productivity of millions of people who call this city home.
We have also long known the root causes of this - unplanned urbanization, rampant encroachment and filling of our water bodies, and a woefully outdated and inadequate drainage system.All of these elements continue to cripple this city’s ability to handle rainwater.
Over the past two decades, Dhaka has lost thousands of acres of designated flood flow zones, retention areas, and water bodies - natural buffers that once absorbed excess rain. Instead of learning from these mistakes, we have come no closer to putting an end to encroachment and to add insult to injury, we have also failed to expand or maintain the drainage network.
What is most frustrating is that we see this year after year. Every monsoon brings the same headlines, the same images of inundated streets, and the same official assurances, and even the same editorials.
Yet, somehow, we remain unprepared, and the suffering continues. We cannot afford to let our capital drown each year. Urgent, coordinated action is the only way forward.
Thursday, June 04, 2026
