Lack of Drainage facility in Dhaka city

For over the last couple of days, it has been raining cats and dogs in the capital city Dhaka. The incessant rain flooded the entire city. The city dwellers suffered a lot. It is nothing new to them. They are used to it. But will they keep on suffering like this all the time? Will they continue to be misguided by the promises given to them by our so called politicians? Time has come for a change. Time has come for building a new Dhaka. Time has come for making a better Dhaka. Only because of lack of vision Dhaka has become one of the messiest cities on Planet. Even a little amount of rain floods the entire city as because there is no proper drainage facility. This creates insurmountable problems to the citizens of Dhaka.

Just take the case of Mr. Enayet. He lives in Rampura. He is 43 years old and is a bank officer. His office is in Motijheel and everyday he has to go to his office by rickshaw. But in rainy days it is quite impossible to find rickshaws. Those who are willing to go ask high prices. Seeing no other options, Mr. Enayet is bound to take rickshaw at high prices. This is not only the case with Mr. Enayet, like him most of the citizens suffer from this consequence. This has been happening for over the years that whenever rain water floods the streets, the rickshaw fairs go up at an alarming high.

The citizens ask today, what was the role of all the previous mayors for over the years? What were they doing? Where were they? Why the development of Dhaka city has not been come into effect yet? Who should be blamed for this? How long the people of the citizens of Dhaka have to suffer like this?



For all these years no one came up with concrete plans of making an effective drainage system all around Dhaka city. Dhaka WASA has failed miserably to bring the entire city under a proper drainage system. Every year during rainy season when the precipitation rate is 150mm to 170mm for 6 hours it becomes difficult to extract this much of water with present drainage system, because it is possible to extract if the precipitation rate is only 40mm to 50mm for 6 hours.

Another main reason for blockage of water is both legally and illegally filling up water bodies for building constructions. Without any barriers, anyone at anytime pile up soils on rivers and lakes for construction of buildings. This has caused serious water blockage around the city and for this, water do not wash away smoothly whenever it rains. This is a major concern today. Our city has developed in unplanned ways.

A report shows by Dhaka WASA that Dhaka city extracts around 56 crore litres of water annually. Out of this, 23 crore litres are rain waters and 33 crore litres are daily water that the citizens consume. In order to properly extract this water, a drainage system of 260 sq km. is needed. But the present drainage system is only of 150sq km. For the rest 110 sq km. no such implementations have been taken yet.

A proper master plan for a proper drainage facility for Dhaka city is needed at the moment. It should not be a short term project. It definitely has to be a long term project otherwise the citizens of this city will continue to suffer.