English Road Park
Now a rubble dumpsite!
The lone park at Tantibazar in the city has turned a dump of construction rubbles and rubbish. Photo: Amran Hossain
The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) has chosen the only park at Tantibazar on English Road as a convenient place for dumping construction waste. It started dumping rubble there around two years back and since then a big portion of the park is always seen occupied by a huge pile of rubbish. No one would recognise that the place was once a green patch of land where people from neighbourhoods used to go in their leisure time for recreation. Even before the dumping of waste began, one part of the English Road Park was being used for parking trucks and pushcarts for several years, taking advantage of the authorities’ apathy to its maintenance, said locals. Asked who is responsible for the dumping, Abul Hasnath, superintending engineer of circle-1 of the DCC, pointed the finger at the DCC waste management department and said it is the department’s duty to remove rubbish from the place now. Biponon Kumar Saha, DCC chief waste management officer, however, has a strange argument in favour of dumping waste in the park. He said dumping waste keeps people from using the park for other purposes like parking vehicles. He went on to say that the truck drivers would have had control over the park if the DCC removed the garbage. About saving the park, he said the DCC engineering section is responsible for the maintenance and development of the park. He added that before the dumping of waste, a private firm named Heritage sought approval from the DCC to beautify the park, but the company worked only on a small part of it. Biponon Kumar Saha blamed the private firm for the present situation of the park. Asked about his remark, Managing Director of Heritage Rafeya Abedin said, “We are still ready to beautify the remaining part of the park but the DCC will have to give guidelines and necessary financial help in this regard as it is a matter of huge money.” Faraz Ali, a resident of the area, said that during the rule of HM Ershad, slipper, cradle and seesaw were set up in the park for children, but those have either been destroyed or become unusable. He said the park was a major attraction for children and elderly people in the area. Children used to play and people suffering from diabetes used to walk in the park in the evening. Now only a few come to the place since there is no other place to go, he added. Abdus Sattar, a 30-year-old of Tantibazar, said, “I have spent my childhood playing in the park. But there is no place for our children to play.” Besides, the park had been a spot of greenery in the area but it has become a bare land with 80 percent trees already felled, he added. Abu Taleb, a resident of Bangshal, said after the DCC started dumping rubbish on the eastern side of the park, locals also joined in. The park becomes a place of junkies after night falls and shops on both sides of the road are closed, he added.
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