INCESSANT rains over the past several days submerged most part of the capital and with many sufferings to people, it also proved that as a nation we are failing to properly develop the city and protect it from problems like water logging and transport failures. As The New Nation reported yesterday most city streets went under waist deep water on Tuesday holding vehicles to a stand still and the suffering of tens of thousands of commuters in the roadside or packed in overcrowded buses in traffic gridlocks were the most terrible scene throughout the city. Flood has also hit the north-east region after the southern districts affecting life of people and plantation in the fields. But the situation in the capital has turned critically worse where most city streets wore the look of running rivers in the poll of water as rains were pouring in at day time or night. Water logging made people marooned at many places with dirty water inundating their homes. Shops and other businesses were submerged and what is most feared now is the outbreak of waterborne diseases like fever, skin disease, diarrhoea and the like.
The situation is not new but its impact is hitting the city dwellers with fresh wounds every time the city becomes inundated by heavy rains. The same traffic gridlocks, the same water logging and desperation of people that show time and again the incompetence of our government and the nation as a whole to create a livable city with efficient drainage system and transport network. Needless to say, the government is spending huge budgetary resources every year to improve the city drainage system but we don’t know why the system is not improving or breaks down as soon as downpour occurs in the city. WASA and other utility services take up digging work the city streets mainly in rainy season to add to more sufferings to the city dwellers. In fact people don’t see any logic of such digging in the rainy season but there is hardly anybody who will tell the people that the digging work in this or that part of the city is over and that it will not be required any more. In fact it is a business between utility contractors and utility providers and it therefore does not stop.
Our question is why everybody has to prove that we are incompetent and worthless. The new city Mayors of Dhaka gave us all hope for using their best efforts to improve the dismal conditions of Dhaka city. But the city dwellers so far see no improvement and no activity of the Mayors worth noticing. If the city Mayors are not getting cooperation from the government, then they should not remain in office only to prove themselves useless.
