Reducing Dhaka's waterlogging

Waterlogging has become a ritualistic affair in Dhaka. It is unfathomable how a city of over 16 million people still does not have a working storm drainage system.

Every year during the monsoon season, whenever a little rain inundates the entire city, we are accustomed to hearing platitudes of the public officials that the problem would soon be over. For example, the LGRD and cooperatives minister pledged last year that we would not witness waterlogging in Dhaka in 2018. In reality, however, there hasn't been any noticeable improvement of the situation.

If anything, it only gets worse day by day as remaining floodplains and canals are getting occupied by powerful locals, blocking the passage of rainwater, as is evident in one of yesterday's front-page stories of this newspaper. If the government really wants to reduce waterlogging in Dhaka, the order of the day should be recovering the occupied canals and water retention areas as soon as possible.

The fact that there are seven authorities to deal with Dhaka's drainage affair on a piecemeal basis speaks volumes of the lack of coordination among public offices.

In addition, every year the government allocates a huge amount of money in improving the city's infrastructure, including the existing drainage system, which obviously is not being properly spent. It's high time that misspending of public money was stopped and instead allocated where it is needed, such as in building a storm drainage system.