Initiative should be taken right now to tackle the city’s water-logging situation, otherwise time will come when the people will be compelled to leave the capital with utter dismay, experts warned.
The experts called for taking immediate steps to rescue the city’s canals first that have been grabbed by some influential people during the last few years.
Otherwise, the government’s hope to recede the rainwater from the street within three hours will remain a daydream. And once the city’s major thoroughfares would remain under water for years, the experts said.
LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain on Thursday claimed that rainwater will recede within three hours from the next year.
“Water logging problems in Dhaka city will not take place next year. And if the city’s streets and lowlying areas are inundated due to heavy rainfall, water will recede within three hours,” he said at a briefing on the eve of two-day international conference on water.
The conference will be held in the capital Dhaka on July 29 and 30.
Urban and water experts rejected outright LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain’s claim, warning every major thoroughfare in the city will be inundated and the waters will have no scope to recede from the city.
M Enamul Huq, former Director General of River Research Institute and Water Development Board of Bangladesh and urban experts Prof Nazrul Islam and Prof Shamsul Huq echoing the same views said if the present trend of city governance continues, all city streets will remain submerged during monsoon in a decade.
The experts who made their remarks in different media on Wednesday and Thursday said the situation will intensify the suffering of the city dwellers, and some day the people will be compelled to leave the city.
Enamul Huq said as almost all canals around Dhaka city have been grabbed by some influential people after filling up the water canals and used those for various purposes it will not be possible to make the city livable within a year.
“The WASA and city corporations have failed to rescue the canals from the grabbers in the last eight years. Now, how and in what way the government hopes that the rainwater will recede from the city within three hours,” he said.
Prof Shamsul Huq said there is no possibility of good days in the future.
“Lack of good governance pushed the capital to such a sorry state. And this problem will be spreading to other metropolitan cities. Now capital Dhaka, port city Chittagong, Khulna and Sylhet are facing the worst situation. It is like a cancer that spread fast leading to death,” he said.
He said once the Dhaka will be an abandoned city as people will have no option to live here.
Prof Nazrul Islam said the concerned authorities, who use or control the city land, do not have any headache about the city streets.
Besides, the concerned authorities responsible for constructing or repairing the city roads do not have any idea about city land.
“And the agencies which are responsible for controlling the traffic system, they do not have any study on city lands and roads,” Prof. Nazrul said.
The experts predicted that the city will face far worse water-logging situation in the future.
