Officials of the WASA drainage circler said that at places in the drainage system during the on-going monsoon they found mattresses, pillows, piles of concrete rubbish, old shoes and range of other items clogging the drains and at places suddenly creating a localised water logging.

"With canals and flood flow zones under severe encroachments, we are now faced with this nonsense everywhere in the city," said an official of WASA requesting customary anonymity.

The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), which maintains a vast network of surface drains are also faced with similar problems everywhere in the city. During the recent rains DCC officials said that they discovered a new problem with new areas suddenly water logged.

"As soon as our teams of workers learnt about the new areas we rushed there to find the local drains clogged with all sorts of rubbish," said a DCC official.

Near the kitchen markets water logging problem remains at its worst, both DCC and WASA officials pointed out. Because the existing garbage disposal system run by the DCC only works partially, discarded vegetables, animal parts, bones are directly thrown into the drains, making it impossible for the authorities to ensure flow in the drains.

"By the time we clean some of these drains some others get clogged and some more areas become water logged," said a DCC official. "if the public do not cooperate it is impossible to maintain flow in the drainage system," he added.

The municipality act prescribes a mild penalty for obstructing flow of anything from a drain to natural canals. According to officials it is virtually impossible to apprehend an offender. They said in most cases offenders choose the darkness of the night to dump such heavy wastes into the drains.

"With our manpower it is impossible to post guards everywhere to try to apprehend offenders, we have to help grow awareness among general mass," said the WASA official.

A DCC official said that unscrupulous DCC drivers of the conservancy department are also found dumping rubbish 'anywhere they liked' to save fuel on the vehicle for making extra bucks by selling it.

The existing drainage system is already inadequate for drainage of such a big volume of water at a time. Moreover if these existing lines are clogged with human carelessness, we have to think of doing something immediately about it, officials said.

Dhaka WASA maintains a total network of 150 kilometers of storm sewerage while they said that they need another 100 kilometers of network to manage city's water logging problem.

The DCC on its turn maintains thousands of kilometers of surface drains in the lanes and by-lanes of the city.

"Nowadays water logging is not happening at a place, the problem is popping up from different parts of the city because people are dumping rubbish everyday into the system," said an official of the DCC.