A planned Dhaka is possible
Monday, 7 June 2010
Looking at Dhaka city closely, one would be simply stupefied to see the frightful chaos that has now endangered the lives of millions and millions of its residents. What is required under the circumstances is not shifting focus on this or that problem as they arise but to look at all of these great living hazards for its people in totality as the outcome of a lack of a planned city.
Dhaka and its suburbs are considered to be holding no less than 14 million people. A big part of this population have their homes in the old quarters of the city. The population density is also the greatest in these older parts of the city. But the old city presents a spectacle of complete chaos that keeps the people here hostages to a disaster any time of the sort like last week's devastating fire incident.
Any modern city must be zoned properly between residential, industrial, commercial and other areas. But rows and rows of dingy buildings are found in old Dhaka which were never planned for safety. The structures have hardly any spacious stairways for the urgent exiting of people. The maze of these buildings are served in most cases by alleys so narrow in some cases that even two rickshaws cannot pass side by side in them. In case of a fire incident, the large vehicles of the fire service find the narrow lanes and by-lanes practically impassable. Besides, as the latest tragic fire incident showed, these buildings house both humans in large number as well as quickly inflammable materials of all sorts such as plastics, chemicals, polythene, etc. Make-shift factories of all kinds abound there from polythene bag making ones to plastics industries of the cottage type. The gas lines in these areas are often found leaking and prone to causing accidents on coming in contact with even a slight spark from somewhere.
But the question is: if the people of these areas have acted without wisdom or sanction, what have the regulatory agencies been doing to help them to save themselves? No amount of excuses can justify the gross apathy of successive governments in making even a start in freeing these areas from the very high risks they carry.
Even now, it is not impossible to think of and start executing a plan of action to gradually oblige the people of these areas to live away from them in exclusive residential areas. Similarly, the factories in them can be moved out to designated industrial areas where the stores of inflammable goods can be kept under supervised conditions. Meanwhile, Titas Gas can of course embark on a crash programme to mend leaking lines of gas and keep them in good conditions. No less important would be establishment of a central control to detect any gas line-related accident and to turn off gas supply over a large area very quickly. Such mechanisms are available and found in use in many countries.
Thus, it is not impossible to address the problems of high risks to human existence in the city. There is no reason to throw up hands in despair or to think that the problems are so great that the same defy a solution. One has to only make a start and keep going regardless of the changes in government or the opposition of interest groups.
Dhaka and its suburbs are considered to be holding no less than 14 million people. A big part of this population have their homes in the old quarters of the city. The population density is also the greatest in these older parts of the city. But the old city presents a spectacle of complete chaos that keeps the people here hostages to a disaster any time of the sort like last week's devastating fire incident.
Any modern city must be zoned properly between residential, industrial, commercial and other areas. But rows and rows of dingy buildings are found in old Dhaka which were never planned for safety. The structures have hardly any spacious stairways for the urgent exiting of people. The maze of these buildings are served in most cases by alleys so narrow in some cases that even two rickshaws cannot pass side by side in them. In case of a fire incident, the large vehicles of the fire service find the narrow lanes and by-lanes practically impassable. Besides, as the latest tragic fire incident showed, these buildings house both humans in large number as well as quickly inflammable materials of all sorts such as plastics, chemicals, polythene, etc. Make-shift factories of all kinds abound there from polythene bag making ones to plastics industries of the cottage type. The gas lines in these areas are often found leaking and prone to causing accidents on coming in contact with even a slight spark from somewhere.
But the question is: if the people of these areas have acted without wisdom or sanction, what have the regulatory agencies been doing to help them to save themselves? No amount of excuses can justify the gross apathy of successive governments in making even a start in freeing these areas from the very high risks they carry.
Even now, it is not impossible to think of and start executing a plan of action to gradually oblige the people of these areas to live away from them in exclusive residential areas. Similarly, the factories in them can be moved out to designated industrial areas where the stores of inflammable goods can be kept under supervised conditions. Meanwhile, Titas Gas can of course embark on a crash programme to mend leaking lines of gas and keep them in good conditions. No less important would be establishment of a central control to detect any gas line-related accident and to turn off gas supply over a large area very quickly. Such mechanisms are available and found in use in many countries.
Thus, it is not impossible to address the problems of high risks to human existence in the city. There is no reason to throw up hands in despair or to think that the problems are so great that the same defy a solution. One has to only make a start and keep going regardless of the changes in government or the opposition of interest groups.