Zinda Park gasping for survival

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Khalilur Rahman
Civil society members and Green activists continue to voice concern over the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha's (RAJUK) move to control Zinda Park at Rupganj on the outskirts of Narayanganj city. The park, spread over an area of 150 acres of land, was set up 30 years ago by a group of enthusiastic youths of the area and since then they have been maintaining this vast green space. About 4000 people have found means of earning their livelihood by working in the park.
The park is also an important tourist attraction of the area, visited regularly by hundreds of people from home and abroad. The Zinda Park Rakkha (protection) Committee of Paribesh Bachao Andolan (POBA) formed a human chain on February 4 last in front of the Fine Arts Faculty of Dhaka University, urging the government to take steps against the RAJUK, the lone city development authority, now trying to hand over the management of Zinda Park to another body. The protesters said if the management of the park is transferred to others, its maintenance would not be carried out efficiently. The natural beauty and ecological balance of the Park would be destroyed. Speakers at the meeting also alleged that the RAJUK was bent upon forming a new managing committee of its choice for Zinda Park.
In September 2010 a large number of people and leaders of POBA went on a 24-hour hunger strike in Narayanganj to save Zinda Park. According to a report, RAJUK plans to lease out Zinda Park. Agrapathik Palli Samiti, formed in 1980 began to develop the vast land donated by local people into a park. Zinda Park has as many as ten thousand different kinds of tress, three lakes and several rest houses. The RAJUK says that the park falls under the jurisdiction of its Purbachal Housing Project and that it can lease out the site to a third party. POBA chairman Abu Naser Khan says that Zinda Park is an example of people's voluntary participation in developing a vast green space and maintaining it successfully for the last 30 years. He told the media that the RAJUK move has been directed towards satisfying the desire of some influential persons of the locality.
According to a report published in a local daily, the Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Narayanganj in a letter sent to RAJUK had also requested the city development authority not to take away the management of the Zinda Park from Agrapathik Palli Samiti. In his letter, the DC observed that the Samiti has success fully run the park for the last thirty years and it is meaningless to take it away from them. An official of RAJUK said that the city development authority decided to hand over the park on lease to some organisations for turning it into a 'world class recreational park'. The struggle by the local people to save Zinda Park continues.
In the fast tempo of urbanisation and influx of people to the metropolis over the years, parks and open spaces have vanished one after another. The situation has come to such a pass that Dhaka city is now a jungle of concrete structures. Invariably local influential people are behind the occupation of playgrounds, parks and open spaces. In many places the parks and playgrounds are being used for parking trucks, buses, vans and rickshaws. Let us cite an example of a place which was kept reserved for children's park at Naya Bazar in the old part of Dhaka city about quarter of a century ago. Truck owners started using it for parking their vehicles. In the face of public demand the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) recovered the park from illegal occupation 15 years ago and put up various park equipment there. But the DCC took little care for the maintenance of the park at Naya Bazar. As a result, those equipment gradually disappeared. Now the place is being used as a dumping depot of garbage.
In another part of the city at Armanitola, as we reported earlier in this column, a large ground which was created long before partition in 1947 has been surrounded by trucks, pickup vans and other vehicles. This unauthorised parking of transports have not only caused acute traffic jam but marred the beauty of the ground making it difficult for local people to use the ground. The illegal parking of trucks and vans on the road there continues for a long time under the very nose of the law enforcing agency. Taking advantage of the situation, drug addicts and muggers remain active almost round the clock. This age-old vacant lot has therefore lost its charm and utility.
We strongly feel that RAJUK should discharge its duties as a protector of parks and open spaces and desist from taking any move that may jeopardise their existence like the one-Zinda Park. (E-mail : khalilbdh@gmail.com)