Encroachment on water bodies responsible for waterlogging

Encroachment on water bodies and canals is responsible for waterlogging in the city, Agriculture Adviser CS Karim said yesterday.
It is not possible for the government alone to stop such encroachment on rivers and other water bodies, he said and called for raising awareness among the city dwellers about it.
The adviser said this while visiting the pump house at Rampura in the city. The pump house pumps rain or flood water out of the city.
The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, Dhaka City Corporation and Bangladesh Water Development Board have taken various measures, including cleaning up drains, evicting encroachers from water bodies, and increasing the number of pumps at the pump houses, to remove waterlogging problems, the adviser said.
But if the encroachers continue to fill up canals and other water bodies, the situation would remain the same, he added.
He also called on the city dwellers to come forward to supplement the government efforts to stop encroachment and filling up water bodies through dumping wastes.
"We have cleaned up the canals in DND areas and also conducted an awareness campaign to make the people aware so that they do not dump wastes in the canals again," he said.
The adviser also visited flood protection embankment in Gabtoli, pump house at Goranchatbari and DND area.
High officials of water resources ministry, WASA, DCC, Water Development Board, Institute of Water Modelling and water experts accompanied the adviser.
"We have already cleaned up 125 km of drains and 21km of canals in the city," WASA Managing director Raihanul Abedin said.
Chief Engineer (central zone) of BWDB Md Liaquat-al-Faruque said they have already excavated 34.142 km of canals in DND area to reduce waterlogging.
He blamed unplanned urbanisation for waterlogging in the area.
Country Representative of IUCN Dr Inun Nishat was also present.