A CABINET Committee yesterday approved alterations to the Detailed Area Plan (DAP) to allow some private housing schemes on conservable flood flow zones of the capital, as reported by a local daily. This would pave the way for legalising Jolshiri Abashan housing scheme of the Army in Rupganj, Protyasha of retired government officials (admin) on the Turag in Tongi, and portions of Bashundhara housing project in Baridhara.
The Protyasha project and the portion of Bashundhara project had been declared illegal by the High Court in June 2011 along with 75 other real-estate projects and the government was asked to scrap the projects and remove all illegal developments done there. The other projects to benefit from the approval are American International University Bangladesh in Joar-Shahara of the capital and University of Information Technology and Sciences in Badda.These would be built in DAP earmarked residential areas which have been altered to include institutions. The Cabinet Committees move is being seen as a win for influential real-estate Companies and a loss for conservationists, environmentalists and town planners.
Housing Minister Mosharraf Hossain, who presided over yesterday’s Cabinet Committee meeting, said they approved the requests of the army’s and admin officers’ housing schemes as the two had come up with engineering solution to water drainage. “Those were once flood flow zones but not anymore as they have developed and built them up,” he said, as per the report. Replying to a question, the minister said any other real estate developer that has developed housing on wetlands and flood flow zones would also get approval if they keep provision for sewer and drainage.
It is yet another example of the government caving in to the demands of big businesses like realtors and the military and civil administration. It’s unfortunate that the 35 percent of Dhaka earmarked for housing in the DAP is yet to be filled up – if it were an additional one crore people could safely live – filling in wetlands has serious consequences like waterlogging in city roads even after a simple rainshower. But it appears that Cabinet Committees are not at all worried about waterlogging or water retention and thus housing projects once illegal can now become legal simply on the basis of their keeping provisions for drainage and sewers.
The consequences of passing these plans will only be felt if Dhaka undergoes a sever flood like the 1988 or 1998 floods which devastated the city and left many parts of it navigable on by boats. It would be an irony if following some future flood the passers of these plans would have their houses flooded or would have to take boats to work — simply due to the result of their actions. We can fool ourselves, but nature cannot be fooled.
The motive behind according such green signal to those projects is doubtlessly clear that the government, now in legitimacy crisis and depended on police force and bureaucracy – both civil and military – for their very existence in power is to buy favour and loyalty of the bureaucratic apparatus of the permanent government. It is not important for them how bad that would be for the city citizenry or the environment. What is important for them is to buy lasting support from the bureaucracy.
