Flood shelter

Photo: AFP

It appears that flood in Bangladesh has become a part of our life and is destined to occur at least once in two or three years, if not every year. To try to find causes of flood or try to prevent it would be a futile exercise and an absurd proposition because such exercise would not help us in any way due to practical reasons. Therefore, instead of sitting idle and suffer as a fait accompli, perhaps we may try to adopt measures which may mitigate the sufferings of the flood stricken people, particularly belonging to the far flung areas.
In this respect I have thought of following steps which may be of interest to the authorities and other quarters:
1. Construction of six storied flood shelters in the remote inaccessible areas throughout the country to provide temporary shelters to the displaced persons and livestock of the locality. The shelters should have at least five thousand square feet in each floor with helipad facility on the roof.
2. Each shelter should be provided with two large boats for use during flood.
3. One of the floors could be exclusively used as clinic and temporary residence for physicians and their staff etc.
4. These shelters could be used as school or madrasa during off-season. A portion of the shelters could also be used as community centre so that letting out those could generate funds for maintenance and meeting any other expenses.
5. The management committee of each shelter may comprise of representatives from local public, UP members, law enforcing agencies, NGOs like BRAC, Grameen Bank etc. The shelters should be under the overall legal and administrative supervision of the Ministry of LGRD.
Since the proposed project would entail investment of a substantial amount of money to materialise, appeals may be made to foreign donor agencies, Bangladeshi expatriates, local NGOs, and the public for contribution.
Perhaps Grameen Bank could consider participating in such a noble project. So far they are known for their contribution through a commercial and profit making venture. Let them now come up with some voluntary activities for the welfare of the distressed people. The country would now like to see Dr. Yunus' benevolent role for the benefit of and in mitigating the sufferings of the distressed humanity.
In the recent floods it was noticed that public came up spontaneously to donate to flood relief funds without asking for any “label” as was asked by few major political parties in their usual manner of politicising every issue. But for want of any safe transportation such as motorized water crafts, far flung areas could not be reached by them. As a result, it was seen that, the flood affected people in and around the cities were the only recipients of the relief materials.
I believe the proposed idea would mitigate the sufferings of the flood affected people to a great extent as relief could be reached and distributed in an organised manner in the shortest possible time at their doorsteps. The services of the armed forces also could be sought to provide their logistic support to help the civil administration in the distribution of relief materials smoothly in a proper manner.