Season’s first rain and consequences

It is quite usual for the media, print as well as electronic, to devote part of their time and space to highlight the sufferings that the residents of Dhaka city are forced to go through, following a moderate to heavy rain. They have been doing so for years with no visible change in the situation. Rather the overall situation has worsened. The scenario that emerged after the season's first rain last Thursday bore testimony to that fact. A 64mm rainfall, as measured by the weathermen over four hours' time on the day, wrought havoc all over the city. Most roads, lanes and bye-lanes went under ankle-to-waist deep water, throwing the city's traffic system into total chaos.

The worst affected areas were Mirpur, Shantinagar, Motijheel, Malibagh, Moghbazar and most part of the old city where the problem of water-logging is severe because of poor drainage system. Muddy and polluted water entered the residential houses and commercial establishments in those areas. Office-goers, students and their guardians were the worst sufferers. In fact, last Thursday's rain that broke the long spell of hot weather had brought a pack of miseries for the city dwellers, instead of making them happy. Rainfall on the day, according to the met office, was nothing abnormal and there should not be any reason for cursing it. If anyone is to blame for the sufferings of the city's population during rainy season is the agency responsible for the maintenance of the city's drainage system.

The city dwellers face a hellish situation even after a normal rainfall just because of poor drainage system. Unfortunately, some areas of the city do not have any physical facility necessary to drain out the onrushing rainwater. The Dhaka city has expanded haphazardly with the relevant government agencies remaining indifferent to the need for making available all the facilities that a city needs. It has thus become one of the world's worst livable cities. There is no denying that righting the wrongs done over many decades is quite a daunting task. Reversing the situation in many areas might even prove impossible. Still the authorities concerned would have to do something to improve the city's drainage system.

The problem of grabbing the old canals is cited is often cited as one major reason for the poor drainage system of the city. But restoring the canals to their old state is apparently an impossible task. Improvements have to be made through innovative means. If necessary, the government will be required to take a few harsh measures, including the eviction of land grabbers and acquisition of private land to make way for the drainage network to function. This is necessary to save the capital city from remaining inundated throughout the rainy season in the future. Unless and until the relevant government agencies, including the city corporations and the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (Dwasa), rise to the task, nothing would happen and the water-logging problems would only aggravate.

The erstwhile Dhaka City Corporation was bifurcated with the objective of making the civic facilities smoothly available to the city residents. Unfortunately, until now there has been no visible achievement to that direction. The city corporations have recently got their elected mayors and councillors. The mayors in particular had made robust promises in their election 'manifestos' about ridding the city of the problem of water-logging. Now is the time they redeemed their promises. Their predecessors had also made identical promises, but they had failed. One hopes the present Dhaka city mayors would not follow the footsteps of their forerunners and do whatever necessary to improve the drainage system.