Drainage system fails to deliver

The city witnessed around 55mm rainfall during six hours of April 29 and that was enough to produce knee-deep water in major residential and commercial areas. What surprised most of us is that city authorities have been harping over the last two years about setting up an underground drainage system which, we were told, would take care of monsoon waters this year! Sadly, as things have panned out, thousands of crores of Taka have been spent building a drainage system that does not work. And monsoon is yet to come!

But then it is not just about having a network of drainage pipes. Rather it has much to do with having enough canals and lowland, which Dhaka appears to have run out of. The city can't handle a heavy spell of rain because authorities inform us major dredging work of canals like Segunbagicha, Manda and Dholai Khal (a total stretch of 30km) is behind schedule. We have a similar situation with cleaning clogged up box culverts and drainage channels.

Dhaka has only 2 percent area dedicated to water retention (against a requirement of 12 percent for a city of this size), and when this is coupled with the fact that nearly 90 percent of the city is covered in concrete, the monsoon rains have no way to drain out to water bodies and end up stagnant on our roads. We would like to know what has happened to the crores spent on the so-called new drainage system that forced millions of city residents to put up with dug up roads for the last so many years, and precisely how long it will take for city authorities to deliver on promises.