Survey excluded local water bodies

Representatives and residents of Tarabo Municipality at a public hearing yesterday demanded that the severe water logging in the area be resolved by identifying and conserving all water bodies under the upcoming detailed area plan (DAP) for the capital city.

The municipality, having over 1.5 lakh population and covering 24.60 square kilometres of area, is known for its weaving industry of world-famous Jamadani saris.

The area remains under water for the most part of the year as a significant portion of water bodies and wetlands in the area have been filled up, said locals.

All the water bodies in the municipality including canals and storm drainage systems as well as the river Shitalakhya have to be conserved by conducting errorless field survey, mapping and incorporating land use provisions in the Narayanganj-Narsingdi Augrani Irrigation Scheme (NNAIS), they also demanded.

Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk), the official custodian of Dhaka's master plan, organised the public discussion at the municipality as part of updating the DAP for a 20-year period till 2035.

The councillors of the municipality resented that the consultant firm responsible for preparing the survey report for the DAP did not include many local canals in the NNAIS.

Nigar Sultana, town planner of Tarabo Pourasabha, said had they done the field survey properly and communicated with the Bangladesh Water Development Board authorities, instead of depending on satellite images only, they could earmark all the canals in the proposed plan easily.

Kazi Golam Hafiz, team leader of the consultant firm Development Design Consultants (DDC), could not be reached for his comments on the issue since as his cell phone was found unreachable despite several attempts made by this correspondent.

The community representatives of Tarabo also demanded that the DAP needs to properly identify all public lands in the municipality to develop civic amenities, propose a road connectivity with the Eastern Bypass and the Dhaka-Sylhet highway, and relocation of heavy industries out of the municipality.

DAP project director Ashraful Islam said he would deploy a planning team including representatives from the consultant firm at the municipality for the next one week to rectify flaws in the survey report.

With the current DAP expiring its 15-year term in 2015 without having implemented most of its key recommendations on conservation of wetlands and flood flow zones, Rajuk embarked on adopting yet another 20-year detailed plan in March 2015 for the period 2016-2035.

Rajuk board member for planning Abul Kalam Azad among others was present while municipality mayor Hasina Gazi chaired the meeting.