The Dhaka city corporation authority in north has pledged to restore the natural flow of water in all the canals located in its territory.
“There is no alternative to rescuing canals for restoring water flow. This time the DNCC will not back down from evicting illegal structures from the canal boundaries. The canal will be rescued with the cooperation of the people,” said Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Atiqul Islam.
He said this on Monday while he was talking to the journalists during illegal structure eviction operation from the city’s Ibrahimpur canal boundary launched by DNCC.
He said, “This time no one will get chance to grab the place again after being rescued.”
“Trees will be planted in the banks of the rescued canals to increase natural beauty. Besides cycle lanes and pathways for the pedestrians will be built.”
DNCC Mayor further said, “CS map will be followed to fix the boundary of canals and all type of illegal installations will be removed. No matter how many obstacles come in the way of implementation of this work, DNCC will not back down. No concessions or favors will be given to the occupiers, no matter how powerful they may be.”
Earlier, the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) had launched a crash programme to clean canals and box culverts in the capital from the Panthakunja Park section of Panthapath on Saturday.
In respect to this last Thursday the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) handed over 26 canals from Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) to Dhaka North City Corporation and DSCC to reduce long-standing water lodging in the capital. Out of these 26 canals, 11 canals and box culverts are in DSCC territory.
The two city corporations of Dhaka have been given the responsibilities of cleaning and maintaining 26 canals from Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) to reduce long-standing water lodging in the city.
The responsibility for canal maintenance in the capital was officially handed over by Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) Minister Tajul Islam through a signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at Hotel Intercontinental on last Thursday.
At the canal handover ceremony, LGRD Minister Md Tajul Islam said, “The two city corporations will take all the responsibilities for resolving waterlogging problems and they will have to do the work taking help from other agencies and residents of Dhaka city.”
The Minister said, “DWASA had been maintaining 26 canals (84.5 km long), 385 km storm water drains, and 10 box culverts (around 10 km) since 1988. Two city corporations will now maintain and manage 2,200 km pipe drains and surface drains.
Tajul Islam also said, “The government has taken different initiatives to increase civic service and it is being implemented in phases. Hopefully people can give example of the beauty of Dhaka city in near future instead of giving example of Singapore or other developed cities in the world.”
