For a liveable Dhaka city, now and in the future
Thursday, 20 August 2009
A paralytic situation was noted in Dhaka city last Tuesday evening after a downpour that lasted several hours. Awful traffic gridlocks for unusually long periods of time, coupled with flooded roads and vehicles moving at crawling speed, made the ones who were outside their homes for various purposes miserable indeed. Even some private cars turned dysfunctional from wading through waters that got into their engines. If anybody could take a look at the city from above, that person would see a city at a standstill and its residents suffering greatly for only some hours of rain.
It may be an overstatement at the moment to say that Dhaka city with a population of about 15 million and destined to be recognised as one of the top ten mega-cities of the world in terms of population size only a few years from now, is unliveable. It is still liveable except for times of special stress such as during heavy rains that shows up its marked deficiency in having an effective drainage system or during peak hours of traffic movement when even under normal conditions too many jams and for long harass the travelling people. Then, there are inadequacies in vital services that provide power and water.
The point is that the residents of the city have been somehow managing to cope with these growing difficulties. But it cannot go on like this. The label of 'unliveable conditions' would surely be pinned on the city sooner rather than later unless plans and their execution start immediately to positively reverse the present trends of degradation all around. Lack of planning has been at the root of Dhaka's woes. All the natural drainage channels have been grabbed by various encroachers. The natural drainage channels need recovering under short and medium-term programmes and restoring of their earlier functioning. Simultaneously, the network of man-made drainage system needs much expanding. The unimpeded maintenance of both systems needs to be ensured.
The city's water supply will have to be substantially augmented. The relatively cleaner surface waters from the Padma and the Meghna rivers will have to be piped to Dhaka for the purpose. The Dhaka WASA should act on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's suggestion to install two separate water supply lines -- one for drinking water and the other for water for ordinary household purposes. This will apparently reduce the misuse of drinking water and will also significantly reduce the cost of purifying water.
A master plan for improving the country's traffic systems should be completed before the end of 2009 and its implementation should start from 2010. The plans should have building of some essential flyovers in the first phase to be followed swiftly by the gradual building of infrastructures such as elevated expressways, monorails, underground railways, circular river routes, etc. In the short term, the government must go all out for improving traffic policing, keeping road spaces open to the maximum for vehicular movement, organizing proper parking of vehicles on the roads for the same purpose, ensuring proper signalling at intersections with automatic signalling devices etc. All of these measures and more pursued on a sustainable basis are likely to considerably improve the traffic mess in the city even before big infrastructures are built with the same objective.
The government is understandably engaged at the moment with a comprehensive plan to augment power supply for the entire country. But considering the population concentration in Dhaka as well as its pivotal importance for industries and businesses, a short-term special plan needs to be executed at the soonest for increasing power supply in the Dhaka city area.
It may be an overstatement at the moment to say that Dhaka city with a population of about 15 million and destined to be recognised as one of the top ten mega-cities of the world in terms of population size only a few years from now, is unliveable. It is still liveable except for times of special stress such as during heavy rains that shows up its marked deficiency in having an effective drainage system or during peak hours of traffic movement when even under normal conditions too many jams and for long harass the travelling people. Then, there are inadequacies in vital services that provide power and water.
The point is that the residents of the city have been somehow managing to cope with these growing difficulties. But it cannot go on like this. The label of 'unliveable conditions' would surely be pinned on the city sooner rather than later unless plans and their execution start immediately to positively reverse the present trends of degradation all around. Lack of planning has been at the root of Dhaka's woes. All the natural drainage channels have been grabbed by various encroachers. The natural drainage channels need recovering under short and medium-term programmes and restoring of their earlier functioning. Simultaneously, the network of man-made drainage system needs much expanding. The unimpeded maintenance of both systems needs to be ensured.
The city's water supply will have to be substantially augmented. The relatively cleaner surface waters from the Padma and the Meghna rivers will have to be piped to Dhaka for the purpose. The Dhaka WASA should act on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's suggestion to install two separate water supply lines -- one for drinking water and the other for water for ordinary household purposes. This will apparently reduce the misuse of drinking water and will also significantly reduce the cost of purifying water.
A master plan for improving the country's traffic systems should be completed before the end of 2009 and its implementation should start from 2010. The plans should have building of some essential flyovers in the first phase to be followed swiftly by the gradual building of infrastructures such as elevated expressways, monorails, underground railways, circular river routes, etc. In the short term, the government must go all out for improving traffic policing, keeping road spaces open to the maximum for vehicular movement, organizing proper parking of vehicles on the roads for the same purpose, ensuring proper signalling at intersections with automatic signalling devices etc. All of these measures and more pursued on a sustainable basis are likely to considerably improve the traffic mess in the city even before big infrastructures are built with the same objective.
The government is understandably engaged at the moment with a comprehensive plan to augment power supply for the entire country. But considering the population concentration in Dhaka as well as its pivotal importance for industries and businesses, a short-term special plan needs to be executed at the soonest for increasing power supply in the Dhaka city area.