THE government on Monday decided to expand the area of Dhaka city by incorporating 16 Union Parishads into the two City Corporations roughly doubling the total area. The decision was taken at the National Implementation Committee for Administrative Reforms (NICAR). The expansion of Dhaka means expansion of unplanned urbanization, deforestation, sand filling in flood flow zones, and construction of unplanned buildings on arable land destroying greenery. As per media reports, NICAR decided to include eight nearby Union Parishads to Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and eight others in Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) .The total areas of the two City Corporations now stands at nearly 83 sq km under the DNCC and 46 sq km under the DSCC. Following the inclusion of the new unions, an area of 114.58 sq km would be added with DNCC and 64.17 sq km with the DSCC.One year has passed since the new Mayors have taken over the charge but there is not much to show about their success in improving the necessary services. They are demanding more power.Besides, with the expansion of the City Corporations area corruption and misusing public money by the officials may result in further worsening of the civic services. What is so disappointing is that public offices are being held by persons without much knowledge as to how to do their job efficiently. So paper decisions of the government are not making life of the city dwellers any easy. The problem the Mayors are facing is from the party workers of the government who are too powerful for the Mayors to control.
