North Dhaka will be clean in 6 months

The capital will emerge as a completely clean city in the next two and a half years, said Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Annisul Huq while inaugurating a rally in Farmgate yesterday to raise awareness on a special cleanliness campaign.

"A visible change...will be there in the next six months...But we need complete public support to achieve the goal," he said.

Talking to The Daily Star later, Annisul said innumerable illegal billboards have not only made the city ugly but also unsafe for dwellers.

"Hundreds of riskily installed gigantic billboards may collapse and endanger public life...Most of the government machineries want the city to be safe and clean, only a handful of errant ones bring disgrace and embarrassment for the government," he said.

DNCC organised the rally, as did that in the south, to raise awareness on stopping littering with the slogan "Gomi Zero", keeping with the Japanese campaign against waste.

Gomi stands for garbage in Japanese. It also means 5 (Go), that is May, and 3 (Mi), a date. So, Gomi Zero together otherwise symbolises May 30, the day of public campaign for zero waste across Japan.

DNCC officials called upon dwellers to keep the city and their homes clean by refraining from littering on the roads and drains and help practice 3Rs -- reduce, reuse and recycle -- in waste management.   

On how the campaign will be successful with hardly any waste bin available at public places, Chief Executive Officer BM Enmul Haque said, "We can not maintain the bins as ragpickers and vagabonds take those away."

Most of the pedestrian passages around the Farmgate intersection, notorious for being illegally occupied, were found free.

The local city councillor, Faridur Rahman Khan Iran, was heard telling Enmul, "You will not find any hawkers here today illegally occupying the footpaths. I did my best to free those."