The geographical character of Kamrangirchar as an island is being rapidly wiped out with land grabbers, in connivance with different government organisations, filling up the second Buriganga channel.

The second channel of Buriganga, flowing by the char, is now a pitiful site of dotted water bodies. The rest has been brutally filled up and grabbed, what could have been a city's pride in terms of its location.

Kamrangirchar now represents a deformed and sick township. Despite being one of the most neglected suburbs the island has a great contribution towards the city where nearly a million toiling families find cheap accommodations in crammed rooms and continue to fill up the severe labour vacuum in the city.

On Wednesday morning children and boys of the area were playing in the open grounds created by indiscriminate land filling of the river Buriganga.

A few carts were parked haphazardly beside a plaque reading 'Kamrangirchar 31-bed hospital's foundation stone by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on May 4, 2006'. However, there was no sign of any construction of any building. Instead the laid out sand bore the telltale signs of violation of our wetland protection laws.

Haji Lokman Hossain Khan, a trader and resident of the area for 45 years said about the endless sufferings of the residents of the Kamrangirchar. "Many urban poor are living in this area but there is no municipality facility here. There is no sewerage system of Wasa [Water and Sewerage Authority] or no DCC [Dhaka City Corporation] activities," he said.

Most residents of the area use the water of deep tube wells for cooking, drinking and other household work.

"The main problem of the area is the absence of sewerage and water supply system. Due to this problem the residents have to live in a smelly environment and it is spreading disease too," said Khan.

"Traders in the area are sustaining loss regularly for carrying extra cost of generator oil incurred due to long hours of Load shedding. Desa [Dhaka Electricity Supply Authority] is yet to do anything about it," he said.

The power outage in Kamrangirchar is so frequent that angry residents often take to the streets demanding more electricity. Sometimes they besiege the Desa local office.

The roads are narrow and unfit for motor vehicle movement. Often people fill up the potholes on their own so that the cars can move.

There are three complete and two incomplete (for pedestrians and non-motorised vehicles) bridges in the area, which are not enough to transport people and vehicles according to the businessmen and residents.

"To move our trucks through the bridge in section 5 of Nawabganj we have to wait till it is 12 in the morning because if one truck moves through the bridge then other vehicles have to wait on the other side," said Khan.

Belayet Hossain, executive engineer, zone 2, Wasa, said that Kamrangirchar is not under their jurisdiction and at present there is no plan from the government to include the area under Wasa.

Sources at Desa said that Kamrangirchar is under their jurisdiction but electricity generation in the area is lower than the requirement.

DCC Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka, said that Kamrangirchar is a union council and not under DCC but it should be brought under the master plan as it is inhabited by millions of people.

"Once DCC took the initiative to increase the ward number from 90 to 100. At that time Kamrangirchar along with Uttorkhan, Dokkhinkhan and Matuail, was also selected. But some residents of these areas filed a case in high court that these areas are not developed enough so they are not ready to give holding taxes of DCC. Later we refrained from contesting these cases as we were not sure what the high court rule would be," said Khoka.

At present Kamrangirchar is virtually without any local government stalling its entire development works as its chairman Monir Hossain is in jail facing corruption charges.