A move, at last !

The removal of encroachments on the canals intended to restore their natural water flows which an inter-ministerial meeting at the LGRD ministry had ordered in February for WASA to carry out with assistance from law enforcers envisages a massive undertaking. Are we taking a bite bigger than we can chew? Anyway, given the size of the operation, it has to be broken up into manageable phases so as to be implemented in full. On the other hand, if it is too staggered, fragmentary and piecemeal, the campaign might stray into wilderness.

Let it be a phase-by-phase operation, but there has to be an overall time-schedule, tight and compressed within which the tasks will have to be completed. As far as we can see, there are administrative, logistic, legalistic, and financial aspects to the undertaking which hardly need any elaboration except to say that land records must be incontestable, and that the operation will have to be carried out in a neutral, incorruptible and no-nonsense manner. Of course, as far as the slum-dwellers go, it has to be linked to a rehabilitation programme where you need a monetary provision. The social cost will have to be met.

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On the scientific front, removal of illegal structures from the canals gone derelict from disuse will not by itself make them ebullient with natural water flows. These will have to be linked to the rivers girdling Dhaka.

Did we think through it all before taking the plunge?