Ground reality requires concerted efforts

Running efficiently a megacity and that too as old and physically volatile as Dhaka is no mean a task, for it performs even when most of its wearied citizens are asleep.
Its operation, management and organization requires the proactive involvement of professionals all round. Its functions are not be run by functionaries merely lending their autograph at the bottom of an officious order. The role of administrators, architects, business people, climatologists, engineers, economists, landscapers, law enforcers, medical practitioners, planners, politicians and social scientists, not necessarily in that order, cannot be over emphasized. But indeed the most significant contribution to a city's well-being can be made by its beneficiaries, often a missing link in the chain that is repeatedly faltering.
The World Town Planning Day, today, observed for almost sixty years now, gives town planners an occasion to impart education, to celebrate issues and to recognise personalities related to planning. Planner Md. Musleh Uddin Hasan's article is an endeavour to that end. His emphasis on the need to tackle social inequality and the widening rich-poor divide is noteworthy because that holds one of the master keys to seeing that this 400-year old capital city evades a long-standing threat of it becoming 'unliveable'.
Urbanisation, a precondition to economic and social development, shall continue as long as people are driven by their innate desire to improve the quality of life. Landlessness, limited food production, poor investment in farming, natural disasters, joblessness, lack of services-healthcare-and-education in the affected (usually rural areas) countered by the city's allure of expectations, comfortable housing, job opportunities, schooling, medical treatment and entertainment shall sustain the difference between the pulling 'bright lights' and the pushing 'hopelessness'.
Under the circumstances it is essential that each and every public service organisation plan their projects as part of a comprehensive, all-inclusive whole, by taking into consideration the opinions of all parties with a stake in the matter, both in the rural and urban areas, for they are interdependent. Also people have to find the situation encouraging and to their ultimate benefit if a decision is to last the test of time. And, in this day and time, only fools can afford to ignore expertise. Furthermore, mere provision of a singular item, and that too by poor design and high-handed attitude that whatever provided will work, is not the solution to any problem; often it can be the beginning of a series of undesired events. And, have we not seen enough of them?
Our felicitations to all the planners on this auspicious day; and here's wishing they serve this country that is in dire need of their expertise!

The author is Consultant to the Editor on Urban Issues and National Commissioner, Bangladesh Scouts.