Glaring gross mismanagement
There is no doubt that Bangladesh has made some rapid strides to develop and improve its infrastructure in recent times, particularly in Dhaka city. Poor maintenance and inefficiencies, however, mean that the general public are still denied of much of the expected benefits of development, as made evident by two photographs published by this newspaper.
According to locals, a two-km stretch of the Jatrabari-Demra road has been in bad shape for the last six years. Things took a turn for the worse four months ago, as seen in the first photograph published on Friday, when the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) started its repair work. While the DSCC mayor blamed the disaster on early rainfall, people living nearby alleged that it was the fault of the contractors who had dug up the entire two-km stretch of road all at once, leaving it unusable and dangerous to travel on.
Meanwhile, in the second photograph, heaps of garbage is seen piled up in front of the footbridge in front of Dhaka Collegiate School and beside Ahsan Manzil on the bank of the Buriganga River, driving tourists away from the historic site. The commonality that can be derived from these photographs is that city dwellers are needlessly suffering because of the authorities' grave mismanagement.
What it should also show is that development without proper planning or oversight, will be of no benefit to the public — the primary objective of development to begin with. We hope that the authorities will not fail to take heed of this lesson and will address the issues immediately.
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