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The High Court (HC) last week asked the authorities concerned to demarcate areas of all parks and playgrounds in the city and demolish illegal constructions on those except the structures built to create sports facilities. The HC bench comprising Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain, while delivering a judgment on two separate writ petitions filed as Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) and Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA), also asked the authorities to comply with its order within 15 days of receiving the copy of the verdict. BELA filed the writ petition in 2003 and BAPA in 2004, seeking HC directives on the government to take measures for protecting the parks and playgrounds from illegal occupation. BELA in its petition submitted that a number of influential political leaders have raised illegal structures on 68 parks and 10 playgrounds in the capital. In some areas, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) itself is an occupier of open spaces including parks. For example, a big park which was created by filling a pond at Jatrabari about 30 years ago by the DCC has now been reduced to a small piece of land. The inhabitants of the area - men, women and children - once found the park as an ideal place for recreation. The local people also used it as a vast ground for holding Eid congregations. Occasionally, exhibitions were also arranged there. About five years ago, the DCC built a public toilet on two bighas of park land. Besides, the corporation constructed a one-storied house at the park which now serves the purpose of a ward commissioner's office. The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) found the park as a suitable place for setting up a pump long ago. Moreover, the construction firm now engaged in implementing Gulistan-Jatrabari Flyover project has occupied a portion of the open space for carrying out its work. The flyover project is being implemented by the DCC. An official of the DCC, however, said that the flyover construction firm was allowed to use the ground until the completion of the project. The DCC will restore the park after construction of the flyover, the official added. But it was not clear as to how the DCC would remove the WASA pump, built two decades ago and its commissioner's office from the park area. In another case, the DCC is yet to comply with a High Court directive, issued seven years ago, to remove illegal semi-pucca construction on a playground at Dhanmondi road # 08. Upon a PIL writ petition, a HC bench asked the DCC mayor in April 2004 to report to the court within 20 days about steps the DCC had taken to protect the playground and free it from unauthorised structure. The Dhanmondi playground, on an area of nearly 14 bighas of land, was handed over to DCC in January, 1984 by Public Works Department (PWD). The DCC was entrusted with the task of maintaining the playground. In May 2003, a HC bench, upon a writ petition filed by BELA, also issued a rule upon the authorities to preserve and maintain the city's playgrounds and open spaces. It appears that the DCC has utterly failed to perform its duty to keep parks and open spaces free from illegal occupations. The High Court, in its interim order issued on May 11, 2003, asked the government to complete the process of demarcation of city's open lots under Open Space Protection Act, 2000 with a view to recovering children's parks and playgrounds in the metropolis. The HC bench directed the government to formulate a comprehensive plan for development and maintenance of open spaces as per Town Improvement Act 1953 and Dhaka City Corporation Ordinance of 1983. The DCC and other concerned agencies appear to be helpless in the face of illegal occupation of playgrounds, parks and open spaces by influential people. In a major development, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also ordered the relevant authorities recently to take immediate measures to recover all the children's parks and playgrounds in the city. It is high time that the DCC and other agencies wake up to recover the parks and playgrounds before these are totally lost to unplanned urbanization for ever. (e-mail: [email protected])