AFTER the continuous heat wave, Dhaka city dwellers heaved a sigh of relief on Friday when they were met with a downpour. But it quickly hit the people with water logging this time at many city crossings to engage in a different struggle. News reports covered how the relief did not last very long as heavy rainfall submerged parts of the capital in knee-deep water; which made travelling very difficult for city dwellers. Beginning in the afternoon, the torrential rainfall continued intermittently till the evening and led to awful water logging revealing the poor state of the city drainage system. Roads, lanes and bi-lanes in Jigatola, Dhanmondi, Bashundhara and many other low-lying areas in the city were swamped with water. Even though it was a weekend, commuters suffered immensely as scores of vehicles and rickshaws were stranded in roads.
According to Dhaka WASA officials, it is normal that the city’s drainage system would take at least an hour or two to drain the rainwater. WASA has installed pipes to drain out rainwater but the reality is that they are not properly functional to show improvement in water logging. With only a few hours of rainfall, dirty water get spilled up in different parts of Dhaka city and this eventually become the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and other insects. The issue has been discussed over and over again where people have demanded assistance of government local bodies to take initiatives to tackle the water loggings situation carefully.
It still appears that Dhaka city does not have any master plan for drainage system and the infrastructure of a comprehensive drainage system is in disarray as different government bodies are planning their drainage and laying underground cable without coordination. Even though rivers and other water bodies surround the city; the urban drainage system is still not efficient to handle heavy rainfall. The system consists of a complex network of drains; which are both open and underground. The roadside drains flow into bigger drains, which carry sewage and storm water into canals. But many of them remained stuck up by waste and the run off of storm water get handicapped. The troubles come as a fresh reminder every time the city witnesses heavy downpour.
It is true that efforts have been made by government bodies to improve the situation, but in all practicality it must be noted that efforts were not enough. City dwellers still have to wade through dirty water if they want to commute and if that is not possible, lack of available transport and increase in rickshaw fairs make life much more difficult.
The capital needs to have a better urbanization scheme where the erection of buildings and the city drainage is kept under one stop consideration and their plan be implemented accordingly so as to benefit, instead of creating disadvantage to city dwellers. It is advisable that a modern city must have efficient drainage system to keep the streets, lanes and by-lanes movable. Water logging must be not impact people’s life anymore.
