Committee formed to recover water bodies in city

Coordination committee will also work to lessen waterlogging

11 July 2010, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent

A high-powered coordination committee was formed yesterday to speed up efforts to reduce waterlogging, improve supply of drinking water and recover grabbed water bodies considered as sources of water in the capital. The seven-member body was formed at a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on LGRD and cooperative ministry in presence of LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam and State Minister Jahangir Kabir Nanok. Headed by Local Government Division Secretary Manzur Hossain, the committee was assigned to resolve the coordination crisis, take necessary steps to recover grabbed water bodies and mitigate sufferings of people. The other members of the committee are the chief executive officer of Dhaka City Corporation, managing director of Dhaka Wasa, chairman of Rajuk, director general of Water Development Board (WDB) and deputy commissioner of Dhaka. At the meeting held at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, the parliamentary body blasted the top officials of DCC, Dhaka Wasa, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) and WDB for their failure to ensure people's civic rights. The parliamentary watchdog observed people go through immense sufferings, especially for street digging in an unplanned way, due to lack of coordination between the service-oriented government agencies. Talking to The Daily Star after the meeting, Rahmat Ali, chief of the parliamentary body, said, "The committee unanimously observed that Dhaka City Corporation has turned into a den of corruption. Therefore, the city dwellers are being deprived of their civic rights." "The committee asked the ministry to take necessary steps on an emergency basis to overcome this situation," said Rahmat Ali, also a ruling Awami League lawmaker. Citing an instance of corruption, he said the committee in its previous meeting asked the DCC officials to place a list of shop allocation, but they did not do it. It is clear to the committee that DCC was engaged in corruption for which they could not place the list before the committee's meeting, he claimed. The committee recommended that the ministry scrap the 25 percent quota reserved for the DCC mayor in allocating shops. The committee also recommended allocation of shops of DCC through open tendering. He said the Anti-Corruption Commission filed a case last month against five tax officials of DCC and Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka for irregularities in recruitment. The DCC did not take any interim steps against those officials and it proves the mayor patronises the corrupt, he alleged. The committee yesterday asked the DCC top officials to come up with explanations specifying the reasons for not taking steps against the alleged corrupt officials. On implementation of the Detailed Area Plan (DAP), the parliamentary body stressed the need for engaging local lawmakers and other public representatives in the process. The committee also recommended upgrading Gazipur and Narayanganj municipalities into city corporations in a bid to set up satellite cities there. The committee also asked the authorities concerned to identify both government and private organisations which have opened sewerage lines to the Buriganga river causing water pollution. The committee bitterly criticised Wasa top officials for their unplanned street digging in the city causing untold sufferings to the people. It asked the LGRD minister and the state minister to take steps to stop this kind of street digging and ensure accountability of Wasa's activities. Jahangir Kabir Nanok placed a video footage before the committee that shows sufferings of the people due to street digging. "I made a surprise visit to a site where street digging was going on. But during my one-and-a-half-hour stay there I did not notice any Wasa officials to oversee the activities. This is totally unacceptable," Nanok said.