Editorial
Save dying city rivers
Designate a specific authority to do the job
STINKING waters of rivers girdling the metropolis and the physical encroachment on them are strangling the wind pipe of Dhaka city, as it were, to its virtual death. Add to this, the grabbing of wetlands and lakes, and you have an apocalyptic picture of urban ruination, just waiting to happen.
Water bodies that once used to pulsate as natural drainage channels for the city, aside from having a cooling effect on the city environs, especially in summer, are all gone. To illustrate the huge sense of stripping away at our environmental resource, Prof Muzaffer Ahmad, Chairman, TIB Trustee Board cites disappearance of 1000 ponds from the city and 52 disused canals, of which we are only trying to reclaim 13.
But nobody in authority seemed to bother. Government came and government went but the perpetuity of land grabbers appeared guaranteed, thanks to the commonality of interest among land grabbers, local law enforcers and the ruling party influentials. Occasionally, anti-pollution activist groups, the media and the TIB, would bring up the issues of land grabbing and environmental degradation but no sooner had the dusts settled than the professional bunch of operators came into action.
The land grabbing bunches besides, the real estate companies are said to be launching housing projects on 'flood flow and flood sub-flow zones' which portends water logging. Furthermore, strings of industries have mushroomed across some of the thickly inhabited areas of the city. Their owners should be persuaded to move to new locations. The worst case in point is the unresolved issue of relocating the Hazaribagh tanneries that pollute the Buriganga through disgorging noxious effluence into it.
The grabbers of land and violators of environment are all known people. What needs to be done is also known. How many times have we or the environmentalists have said that nothing short of determined political will of the government and a specifically designated authority for the task can turn the tide? Therefore, it is high time the government of the day got a move on and set the grievous wrong right.
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