If not reversed mal-developments will lead to the death of Dhaka
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Nerun Yakub
The horrifying circumstances under which the lives of so many children, women and men have been snuffed out by the Nimtali hell-fire on 3 June 2010, once again exposes the state's fatal flaws: that it has, for far too long, been apathetic, unable or unwilling to enforce existing rules, regulations and laws regarding the use of space and other facilities for homes, commercial enterprises, roads etc.
If governments in Bangladesh had not been so very dysfunctional over the past decades, Old Dhaka's residents could not have thumbed their noses at building codes, or at restrictions regarding the storage of highly hazardous chemicals like TDI (Tuolene Di Isocyanate) where they lived. Nor could the owner of the five-storey Begunbari building (that suddenly tipped over, hours before the Nimtali tragedy started, and crushed the tin-sheds and their poor sleeping inhabitants in its shadow) have managed to construct his dream house on the edge of a recently filled marsh.
The history of 'development' in this land over the past half century at least deserve the prefix 'mal', specially with regard to land use policies, for these have had appalling effects on the natural and built environment of our beloved Bangladesh. Mal-development in fact has become a synonym for virtually every economic activity that uses the God-given resources of this miraculously fertile land, through which some 200 big rivers, rivulets and streams flow, creating in their paths plenty of hoars, boars, beels and jheels.
This region could have been ecologically one of the world's richest and most sustainable if the recommendations of the early master planners had been heeded. The rudiments of urbanization began in the 1920s or so. During the 1960s some sensible planning began to be implemented. But soon after, everything went awry. Mindless plunderers became dominant, and since then it has been nothing but utter rapaciousness. Consider the guidelines given in a 1920s master plan for the development of Dhaka. It had envisaged an ecologically and environmentally sustainable city, with natural bounties like the Buriganga, its tributaries and distributaries and countless water bodies, woven into development in such a way as to yield the optimum benefits without killing the water sources. The banks of the Buriganga for example were to have been developed into promenades and parks and the river itself conserved for navigation purposes.
Of course, it would have been too simplistic to presume that the pristine beauty imagined a hundred years ago could have been protected from the demands of a galloping population. It has grown manifold, bursting at the seams, as it were, competing for land and other natural resources. But surely, under a reasonably enlightened governance, so much degradation of the natural and built environment could have been minimized, if not totally prevented.
Over the years the culture of graft and mismanagement and rule-bending for those who have power, have turned Dhaka into an environmental nightmare in which millions exist in a death-in-life situation. The capital indeed has become virtually unlivable. 'All roads lead to Dhaka' and the population keeps swelling -- currently estimated at 15 million! With successive governments choosing to centralize everything, for the benefit of the movers and shakers and the wheelers and dealers -- while other cities are neglected or ignored -- is it any surprise that the strains have become unbearable?
Thoughtful and consistent concern for a sustainable future could certainly have created less of a mess. Dhaka's plight as a result of this mindless trend is found to be in the news these days, thanks to activist groups who have been focusing on various environmental horrors such as the draining of household and industrial effluent into its rivers and other water bodies. In some cases the authorities do try to respond positively, but the afore-mentioned culture almost always wins over aesthetics and environmental concerns -- and 'real' development.
Recall the scramble about eight years ago for Ashulia, 30 km northwest of Dhaka, a vast area created as a catchment for the millions of cubic metres of floodwater from the river Bangshi. At least half a dozen so-called developers started filling up parts of this vast low-land overtly -- for the construction of 'model towns.' Obviously, high ups in government and political wheeler-dealers have backed such risky enterprises. Have they not been always found to connive with the more influential land grabbers? The result is: 'dream plots' in Ashulia have been on open sale despite the furore in the press over key players, at least one of whom was put behind bars during the military-backed Caretaker Government, to be freed soon to live happily ever after with many heavyweights in his pockets!
Ashulia has been created as a flood-flow zone and holds millions of cubic metres of water outside the Greater Dhaka Flood Embankment, which itself was ill-conceived by illegal money-makers in powerful positions during the Ershad regime. After having wrecked the natural drainage system of Dhaka by filling up most of the beels, jheels and khals, in the zeal for so-called land-development, the powers-that-be then sought to 'protect' Greater Dhaka from flooding by creating a ring of embankment around it. Pumps were put in, ostensibly to drain out the rain water from within the 'protected' area. As anyone experiencing the horrendous waterlogging in the city from just a fews hours of monsoon rain knows, the pumping system has been a complete failure from the start, but General Ershad's favourite minister and his cronies had feathered their nests for life from the huge project.
High time conscientious citizens joined hands to reverse this kind of willful mal-development and mobilized public opinion in favour of meaningful decentralization. With Dhaka as the centre, it would be wise to create as many thriving townships as feasable within the circumference, connected by rail, roads and waterways, making it fairly easy for people to live in the outskirts and work at the centre.
The horrifying circumstances under which the lives of so many children, women and men have been snuffed out by the Nimtali hell-fire on 3 June 2010, once again exposes the state's fatal flaws: that it has, for far too long, been apathetic, unable or unwilling to enforce existing rules, regulations and laws regarding the use of space and other facilities for homes, commercial enterprises, roads etc.
If governments in Bangladesh had not been so very dysfunctional over the past decades, Old Dhaka's residents could not have thumbed their noses at building codes, or at restrictions regarding the storage of highly hazardous chemicals like TDI (Tuolene Di Isocyanate) where they lived. Nor could the owner of the five-storey Begunbari building (that suddenly tipped over, hours before the Nimtali tragedy started, and crushed the tin-sheds and their poor sleeping inhabitants in its shadow) have managed to construct his dream house on the edge of a recently filled marsh.
The history of 'development' in this land over the past half century at least deserve the prefix 'mal', specially with regard to land use policies, for these have had appalling effects on the natural and built environment of our beloved Bangladesh. Mal-development in fact has become a synonym for virtually every economic activity that uses the God-given resources of this miraculously fertile land, through which some 200 big rivers, rivulets and streams flow, creating in their paths plenty of hoars, boars, beels and jheels.
This region could have been ecologically one of the world's richest and most sustainable if the recommendations of the early master planners had been heeded. The rudiments of urbanization began in the 1920s or so. During the 1960s some sensible planning began to be implemented. But soon after, everything went awry. Mindless plunderers became dominant, and since then it has been nothing but utter rapaciousness. Consider the guidelines given in a 1920s master plan for the development of Dhaka. It had envisaged an ecologically and environmentally sustainable city, with natural bounties like the Buriganga, its tributaries and distributaries and countless water bodies, woven into development in such a way as to yield the optimum benefits without killing the water sources. The banks of the Buriganga for example were to have been developed into promenades and parks and the river itself conserved for navigation purposes.
Of course, it would have been too simplistic to presume that the pristine beauty imagined a hundred years ago could have been protected from the demands of a galloping population. It has grown manifold, bursting at the seams, as it were, competing for land and other natural resources. But surely, under a reasonably enlightened governance, so much degradation of the natural and built environment could have been minimized, if not totally prevented.
Over the years the culture of graft and mismanagement and rule-bending for those who have power, have turned Dhaka into an environmental nightmare in which millions exist in a death-in-life situation. The capital indeed has become virtually unlivable. 'All roads lead to Dhaka' and the population keeps swelling -- currently estimated at 15 million! With successive governments choosing to centralize everything, for the benefit of the movers and shakers and the wheelers and dealers -- while other cities are neglected or ignored -- is it any surprise that the strains have become unbearable?
Thoughtful and consistent concern for a sustainable future could certainly have created less of a mess. Dhaka's plight as a result of this mindless trend is found to be in the news these days, thanks to activist groups who have been focusing on various environmental horrors such as the draining of household and industrial effluent into its rivers and other water bodies. In some cases the authorities do try to respond positively, but the afore-mentioned culture almost always wins over aesthetics and environmental concerns -- and 'real' development.
Recall the scramble about eight years ago for Ashulia, 30 km northwest of Dhaka, a vast area created as a catchment for the millions of cubic metres of floodwater from the river Bangshi. At least half a dozen so-called developers started filling up parts of this vast low-land overtly -- for the construction of 'model towns.' Obviously, high ups in government and political wheeler-dealers have backed such risky enterprises. Have they not been always found to connive with the more influential land grabbers? The result is: 'dream plots' in Ashulia have been on open sale despite the furore in the press over key players, at least one of whom was put behind bars during the military-backed Caretaker Government, to be freed soon to live happily ever after with many heavyweights in his pockets!
Ashulia has been created as a flood-flow zone and holds millions of cubic metres of water outside the Greater Dhaka Flood Embankment, which itself was ill-conceived by illegal money-makers in powerful positions during the Ershad regime. After having wrecked the natural drainage system of Dhaka by filling up most of the beels, jheels and khals, in the zeal for so-called land-development, the powers-that-be then sought to 'protect' Greater Dhaka from flooding by creating a ring of embankment around it. Pumps were put in, ostensibly to drain out the rain water from within the 'protected' area. As anyone experiencing the horrendous waterlogging in the city from just a fews hours of monsoon rain knows, the pumping system has been a complete failure from the start, but General Ershad's favourite minister and his cronies had feathered their nests for life from the huge project.
High time conscientious citizens joined hands to reverse this kind of willful mal-development and mobilized public opinion in favour of meaningful decentralization. With Dhaka as the centre, it would be wise to create as many thriving townships as feasable within the circumference, connected by rail, roads and waterways, making it fairly easy for people to live in the outskirts and work at the centre.