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Waterlogging: Reopening Ctg’s lost arteries

Our Correspondent | November 30, 2017 00:00:00


There is apparently no end to the public sufferings from waterlogging in the Chittagong city before 2021 as announced by the concerned development agencies. The Chittagong Development Authority has undertaken a mega project worth Tk 56.17 billion (Tk 5616.50 crore) for implementation of a number of projects with the fund of the government. The duration for implementation of the project started from July 2017 and will end in June 2020. But work on the project has yet to start.

Engineer Khondkar Mosharraf Hossain, Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) Minister, who is in charge of coordinating implementation of the project, held a meeting with representatives of the concerned bodies, such as Chittagong Development Authority, Chittagong City Corporation, Chittagong WASA (Water and Sewerage Authority) and Water Development Board's regional authority in Chittagong, at the ministry on November 12 last to identify areas of coordination. But the meeting failed to come up with any concrete decision and decided to sit again at the LGRD Ministry this December to work out coordinated implementation of a CDA waterlogging mitigation project. So, six months have already elapsed from the three years' implementation period before starting the ground work.

Quoting the LGRD minister the ministry in its press release on the November 12 meeting said that Chittagong city is the nerve centre of the national economy. If Chittagong remains active, the country's economy remains active. The minister said that a realistic and visible solution to the CDA waterlogging problem in coordination with the CCC, CDA and Chittagong Water Development Board will come out in the December meeting. "We will be able to present a realistic and well-planned project to mitigate waterlogging in the Chittagong city before the New Year," said Engineer Khondkar Mosharraf.

He said that after implementation of the already approved waterlogging solution project by the CDA its maintenance will lie with the CCC. Chittagong Water Development Board and Chittagong WASA are also involved with the whole process. So implementation of the project needs cooperation of all. Admitting that the people and businesses of Chittagong are suffering a lot due to waterlogging, he said without a sustainable solution the problem cannot be solved.

To solve the waterlogging problem, the CCC, CDA and Water Development Board sent three similar projects to the Planning Commission. Among them, the project of the CDA worth Tk 56.17 billion was approved in the ECNEC meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 09, 2017. Concerned sources in the CDA revealed that it would get the project implemented by the Bangladesh Army.

The people of the city and its adjoining areas have been suffering from the severe waterlogging for decades. Although the CCC is primarily responsible for taking steps to mitigate the city people's sufferings, former city mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, who was mayor of the CCC for long 17 years did not work out any development project profile (DPP) to solve the waterlogging problem. The former mayor, who claimed himself to be the City Father and is a long time advocate of city government, spent billions for annual routine dredging and dressing - bed cementing and wall retaining -- of canals, drains and tributaries, but failed to draw up any plan to rid the city of its annual curse.

The immediate past mayor of the CCC M Manjur Alam also failed to do anything to protect the city dwellers from the woes of waterlogging in his five years' tenure plus a period of the previous two years during the last caretaker government. He said that he did not get adequate financial support to implement his canal digging schemes. At the same time, he admitted that over Tk 4.50 billion (Tk 450 crore) remained unpaid on account of municipal tax, holding tax and other charges and surcharges with some government and autonomous bodies and private-owned holdings.

Renowned civil engineers and town planners in the private sector have all along been blaming the CDA, CCC and CWASA for not implementing the Drainage Master Plan (DMP) 1995. Engineer Ali Ashraf, chairman of the department of Civil Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of the Southern University and a city planner, stated that the waterlogging in the port city is caused due to a number of reasons, such as (a) mudflow of hills after rainfall due to indiscriminate cutting and levelling of hills, (b) inflow of tidal water with the heavy rainfall, (c) illegal occupation of canals, drains and water bodies, (d) filling up of drains by piling of mud, (e) non-implementation of the Drainage

Master Plan 1995, and (f) gradual disappearance of hills, wetlands, ponds, canals and other water bodies in the city due to rapid industrialisation over the last several years.

On records, there are as many as 65 canals and tributaries in the city but many of them have disappeared because of land fill, land grab and construction of buildings and approach roads by influential persons. The major canals are Chaktai Khal, Rajakhali Khal, Mohesh Khal and Nasir Khal. But many of smaller canals and tributaries have disappeared as people, both locals and others, have illegally grabbed many of the canals and tributaries by sand

filling. After sand filling, they have constructed shops, houses, high-rise buildings, home-bound roads and other infrastructure on the grabbed land. There were 418 kilometres of drains in the past but many of them have been filled up by sand and devoured by adjoining roads and walkways.

A committee of engineers, consultants and experts conducted a survey on the existing canals and drains. They said that 33 canals have already disappeared over the last 48 years while 37 canals exist now. But most of the existing canals ran dry and narrowed causing water stagnation. The canals and drains in the city have lost capacity to carry the flow of water following heavy rain and thus create waterlogging. They opined that trying to drain out a high amount of rain water will be a futile attempt to reduce waterlogging, if digging of new canals is not undertaken. So they suggested digging of three new canals. The CCC took up a scheme to dig a 2.9 kilometres of a new canal from Bahaddarhat Baroipara to the Karnaphuli River at the estimated cost of Tk 2.92 billion in 2011-12 but it did not see the light of day.

What is in the new project? Under the project the CDA will identify the 36 lost canals as per RS (Royal Survey) map and reclaim the canals, construct 85.68-kilometre long and 15-foot wide roads on both banks of the canals, set up

sluice gates, silt traps and construct three large reservoirs connecting the major canals. Besides, the CDA will dig out over 0.528 million (5 lakh 28 thousand) cubic metres of mud, construct 10.77 kilometres of new drains, 0.0176 million (1 lakh 76 thousand) metres of retaining walls and construct 48 arch-type girder bridges and six culverts on 36 canals.

Three underground reservoirs will be constructed connecting Rajakhali and Mariam canals in Chaktai-Khatunganj-Patharghata area, the second one near Moheshkhal of Halishahar and the third one at Mohra. Tidal regulators pump houses will be set up at the mouths of five canals. The canals brought under the project are Chaktai Khal, Birja Khal, Rajakhali Khal, Chaktai Diversion Khal, Mirza Khal, Hijra Khal, Chatteswari Khal, Jamal Khan Khal, Badarkhali Khal, Baromasia Khal, Feringeebazar Khal-1, Feringeebazar Khal-2, Shitol Jharna Khal, Bamonshahi Khal, Noakhal, Tripura Khal, Mohesh Khal, Noyarhat Khal,

Nasir Khal, Kalabagicha Khal, Mariam Bibi Khal, Moghaltooly Khal,

Gupta Khal, Rubi Cement Khal, Uttara Khal, Khondakia Khal, Domkhali Khal, Tekpara Khal, Rampur Khal, Pakija Khal, Ajab Bahar Khal, Goyna Khal, Patenga Nizam Market Khal, No. 15 Ghat Biman Bandar Khal, Sadarghat Khal-1 and Sadarghat Khal-2.

Chairman of CDA Abdus Salam said Chittagong people will see a visible change in the city and be relieved of the waterlogging problem within next three years. Alongside implementing the waterlogging mitigation project the CDA is going to construct the 8.5-kilometre long Chaktai Khal-Kalurghat Bridge outer ring road-cum-embankment on the bank of the Karnaphuli River at the cost of Tk 19.78 billion. Work on both the projects (waterlogging mitigation and outer ring road-cum-embankment) will continue simultaneously.

Another mega project undertaken by the CDA is the construction of the 16.50-kilometre long Chittagong Elevated Expressway worth Tk 32.51 billion. The CEE will connect the south-end of the recently opened-to-traffic Akhtaruzzaman Flyover at Lalkhan Bazar with Chittagong Shah Amanat International Airport. The CDA chairman said the elevated expressway will ease traffic congestions in the southeastern port city. This will be the second elevated expressway project after the 21-km Dhaka Elevated Expressway. All three projects have been approved by the ECNEC at the initiative of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the CDA chairman said adding that implementation of these projects are expected to be completed by 2021.

Regarding the waterlogging mitigation and outer ring road-cum-embankment projects, two experts said these projects will contribute to mitigation of the city's waterlogging problem. Vice Chancellor of the East Delta University Professor Sikandar Khan appreciated the CDA for implementing the project. But the project needs to be implemented properly. Vice president of the Forum for Planned Chittagong Engineer Subhash Barua observed that the project for mitigating the city's waterlogging should have been taken earlier. However, everybody wants this project to be implemented on schedule without any delay. Such a project was proposed in the 1961Chittagong Master Plan. But nobody in the concerned authorities cared about taking up the proposal and look into its implementation.

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