Md. Atikur Rahman :
As the day goes on, our beloved Dhaka city has become ineligible for living. Basically, those who live here alone in austerity, can easily guess that its intense pain and horrific horror. Dhaka City has already been considered as a densely populated and worst-hit region. According to the United Nations Population Fund report of 2003, Dhaka city has been termed as the world’s 11th megacity.
Recently, according to The Economist Intelligence, Dhaka ranks second place in the world’s worst living capital among 140. According to a survey of another international organization The Markers, Dhaka ranked 206th among the worst cities in the 221 most unsafe cities, which really felt all the citizens and environmentalists living in the city. Many people in the country and abroad have expressed their apprehension about the dire situation in Dhaka. Although, because of the reason behind it, many people think that due to the whole administrative system of the country being capital of Dhaka, the huge pressure of the population every day is creating new problems here. Every day there are 1,600 people coming to Dhaka city! New vehicles are on the way to the streets. But the roads are not growing in comparison to the vehicles. In terms of Bangladesh’s socio-economic perspective, we have to adapt to this situation. But now there is a touch of change everywhere. Planned, well-controlled, and improved urbanization has become the focal point of the expectation of people in this era of globalization. It is time to make the city Dhaka comfortable, environmentally friendly, sustainable and development oriented one. People are now in need of livelihood to survive. That is why urbanization is becoming more environmentally friendly, healthy and balanced.
As a result, it has become difficult to protect the civil facilities available here. In this case, we think that if the rapidly decentralization of administrative institutions, development of small and medium cities, and everyone can control increasing population in combined efforts, it will be possible to save the city from the present critical situation. Due to being the capital city and center of the country; all types of office-courts, banks-insurances, industries, educational institutions and commercial houses have been accommodated here. A large part of the total population of the country has been brought here; thereby hampering the civil benefits received the city dwellers. The problem is increasing and thus severe and acute. Due to various irregularities, mismanagement, lack of co-ordination among government organizations, developmental work fraud, infrastructural weaknesses, and corruption in government institutions and horrendous corruption, the civil facilities here are hampered. Presently, the continuity of the problem against the remedy is increasingly serious. So, if the remedial measures are not taken, then cities like our favorite Dhaka and its adjoining cities will be really stagnant in the coming years and the worst catastrophe will be on the city dwellers. So, before wishing to make the situation even more vicious and horrific, we would like to take effective measures and good sense in this regard.
To reduce the population of Dhaka, the administration should be decentralized. The decentralization of the capital can be thought of. Some administrative departments may be replaced outside Dhaka. Now the biggest barrier to living in Dhaka is the city’s communication system. Private cars occupy 70 percent of the city roads but carry only 15 percent of the passengers. Therefore, the use of personal vehicles will be reduced. Look at the appropriate public transport system. More people using public transportation mean less number of cars in the street. There are many open spaces in Dhaka. The number of parks is not enough, and people are worried about whether it is safe and quiet to spend time in those parks, that the main condition of a good city is open space. We do not need to have the traditional Victoria Park in Old Dhaka, where there is a crowd of tourists every morning and in the afternoon. Hundreds of people are traveling in such small places every day. The tree has lost its traits or heritage. Appropriate steps should be taken to protect it. Enabling the river route will have to turn the water bus service. The government has already taken the Metro Rail initiative. Residents of the city will get a lot of relief in this regard.
(To be continued)
Md. Atikur Rahman, Columnist & Head PRO at BUFT, [email protected]
