Sylhet City Corporation struggles with waterlogging

After a 20-day heat wave, Sylhet city saw rain from early Wednesday night. But in only three days, residents are now concerned about waterlogging.

Sylhet City Corporation (SCC) is struggling to fix the problem since the downpour, and the situation is not significantly improving as the upgraded drainage system is still under construction.

After hours of downpour on Wednesday, many parts of the city, including Londoni Road, Pathantula, Madina Market, Puranlane and Sheikhghat, were waterlogged for hours and the situation repeated after every downpour.

Ratan Miah, a pharmacist in Pathantula, said, “Londoni Road to Madina Market via Pathantula, this part gets waterlogged every year after only an hour of rainfall. The city corporation started the extended work of improving the sewerage system of the road, but the slow progress is causing more trouble this year.”

Ajmol Bakht Sadek, a resident of Puranlane, said, “Only a little rainfall causes serious waterlogging in the area as not only the road, but many houses are getting flooded as well.”

Ali Akbar, executive engineer of SCC, said, “These parts of the town comprise of hillocks and some upper-lying land that bring huge water flow to the main drainage system, which is not capable of carrying that much. We’ve started drainage development work and will finish by next rainy season.”

He also said, “The waterlogging at Puranlane is caused by incomplete drainage development work at Zindabazar. It will be completed soon.”

So far, 23 schemes of three bigger projects are being implemented to develop drainage system of these parts of the city. These projects are estimated to end by 2020, Ali Akbar said.

Mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury was seen monitoring maintenance of the old drainage system in Pathantula yesterday morning. “We’re trying hard to resolve waterlogging problem but it’s a huge challenge in a very short time. We’ve successfully reduced waterlogging in many areas and will hopefully reduce it in all remaining ones.”