Don’t make city dwellers your scapegoat

We are quite frustrated to see the mayor of Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) blame residents for the city's devastating waterlogging problem. During a press conference on Monday, he said that "irresponsible" city dwellers carelessly dumped plastic waste in drains and canals, which get clogged as a result and cannot hold water when it rains excessively. The result is flooding and waterlogging that cripples the city every year.

While we cannot deny that responsible civic behaviour is a significant part of a healthy city management system, we must say that placing the blame for waterlogging squarely on the public's shoulder is not only unfair, but is indicative of dereliction by those actually responsible for preventing this scenario. For years, the public have been demanding solutions to Chattogram's waterlogging crisis. Every monsoon, residents brace themselves for dirty ankle- to knee-deep water flooding low-lying areas. Moreover, given that the city is riddled with open drains, getting swept away into one of them is a real possibility as it is nearly impossible to identify the drains because the city gets flooded after minimal rain. What does the mayor have to say about that? Isn't it his job to keep the city safe for the people who voted him into office?

We also want to know what his office has done to make sure that people are not recklessly dumping plastic waste into water bodies. Has there been any awareness-building campaign to stop this problematic behaviour? Has there been any punitive action to deter it? Given that polythene bags and single-use plastics have been banned, why are they still available in the first place?

To his credit, the Chattogram mayor did mention how natural water bodies that were once abundant had been filled up over the years, as well as illegal canal-grabbing and hill-cutting. In August 2017, a megaproject costing Tk 5,617 crore was approved to solve the waterlogging problem, to be implemented by the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA), a part of which was recovering and dredging canals. Six years on, there is still no visible progress. The CCC has been blaming the CDA for not handing over dredged canals, and the CDA has been blaming the CCC for not improving the city's drainage system. On top of that, illegal hill-cutting has raised the risks of excessive erosion when it rains, with the silts ending up in the water bodies and obstructing water flow.

There is a lot that these government bodies, and those in charge of them, need to sort out first before anyone points a finger at the public. They need to properly do their job, and relieve Chattogram residents of their perennial suffering.