Saving the parks of the city

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PARKS are the like lungs of a congested and busy city like Dhaka. The asphyxiating urban existence from various factors is provided some relief through these parks that enable residents to be in touch with nature. Only in these parks , the residents of the city who have no choice but to live in a concrete jungle, they can expect to breathe some fresh air and get refreshed in their minds and spirit by looking at some green. But this healthful and salubrious effects of parks are becoming increasingly unavailable to the 12 million plus people of Dhaka city.
The existing parks of the city are under severe stresses except a few. Most of them such as the Suhrawardy Uddayan are avoided by decent people as these lack the minimum care. Vagabonds, floating people, drug addicts, snatchers and other socially undesirable people appear to have made the parks their stamping grounds. In other cases, the parks have been encroached by unauthorised elements and they carry on their various occupations in the occupied areas, depriving any soothing or aesthetic appeals the parks could have had in the past to their decent users.
More serious is the occupation and destruction of potential park lands. A recent report in the print media described how a potential park land, Lamath, in the Mirpur area of the city has now been practically grabbed by illegal occupiers and the environs here are such that none can conceive that plans existed at any time to turn this area into a natural park for the health benefits and leisure of the people living in residential quarters nearby. There are other such areas in the city which were intended to serve as parks. But the goal was never realized or any step was taken to that end. But the vast population of the city and the projections saying that the population of the city would only further increase greatly, underline the importance of saving these potential park lands.
No reason can exist for not doing so specially under the present interim government which is not burdened by any coterie interests or connections to the illegal occupants. It moved decisively to evict occupiers from grabbed government lands and bring them under government's control. Similarly, the occupied lands which were meant to be parks can be similarly freed from their current occupiers. After expelling them, the government ought to follow-up quickly by establishing full-fledged parks in these areas. There is also a pressing need to take steps on an urgent basis to restore the serenity and other features of parks in the existing parks of the city.
Ali Ahmed
Rampura
Dhaka