Planning process must involve people

People's participation in the planning process is a must for building a planned Dhaka city, the project director of Dhaka's Detailed Area Plan (DAP) said yesterday.

For proper implementation, a development plan must be based on people's opinions, he said, adding that public participation helped identify problems and find solutions.

The DAP authorities should seek localised solution to the needs and challenges of any locality, Ashraful Islam told a public consultation on DAP preparation.

He took local people's suggestions on what their development needs and challenges are at Kaundia Union Parishad, organised by DAP consultants and Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk).

The UP chairman, Atiqur Rahman Khan Shantu, and local residents wanted a road network in the proposed DAP because their villages were isolated from the capital by the Balu and Bongshi rivers on all sides.

They also badly need a bridge (connecting Kaundia with Mirpur Diabari), playgrounds, waste management facilities, and road expansion in the 11.47 sq km area of the union with 1.1 lakh inhabitants, said the chairman.

Such consultations give locals a platform to share their views on what they lack and where to develop facilities and identify land for residential and commercial establishments.

Ashraful Islam said they planned 150 such consultations, and people's opinions would be incorporated into the draft plan, which would again be brought before people for scrutiny.

This will simply spare people the hassles of correcting flaws in the plan and Rajuk the hassles of resolving hundreds of complaints, he said.

With the existing DAP's 15-year term expiring in 2015 and most of its vital recommendations on wetland and flood flow zone conservation remaining unimplemented, Rajuk embarked on preparing another 20-year DAP in March 2015 for the period from 2016 to 2035.

Though it was supposed to be completed by April this year, Rajuk extended the deadline till December.

But with less than half of the ground work done so far, DAP cannot be ready by December, said Rajuk officials.

Ashraful said he would probably need one more year, and hoped to complete the new DAP by the end of the next year.

Rajuk chief town planner Sirajul Islam, who had been the DAP project director for the last two years, said he could not complete the ground survey because the "1,531 sq km area under DAP is so vast."

According to the process, on completion of surveys and public consultations, the consultants will submit interim reports, and a draft plan will be prepared. After another round of public consultations on the draft plan, the DAP will be ready for implementation.

Sheltech Consultants Ltd and The Decode Ltd are the consultants of the new DAP.