Editorial
Rajuk's accountability
Corruption is not the only issue
The High Court has directed the officials of the Rajdhani Unnyayan Katripakkha (Rajuk) to submit their wealth statements to its chairman within 30 days. This is to enable the chairman to evaluate their performance and also to check if they are indulging in corrupt practices. But there is more than merely corruption of Rajuk that should be addressed, and while we thank the High Court for its suo moto rule, we wish it had gone a bit further.
In this regard the court might have ordered for addressing the entire gamut of the function of the capital's development authority including, among other things, restructuring and revamping the organisation, particularly its workforce. There is indeed an urgent need to go into Rajuk's terms of reference and its capability to give us a livable city.
Rajuk's primary task was to develop Dhaka as a well planned capital city, which, although at the moment wears the façade of a modern city, has actually turned into an uninhabitable urban jungle. And this is because the construction works have at best been haphazard and unplanned. Not only that, the problems have been compounded even more by it permitting extension of the two or three storied buildings to high-rise ones, overlooking the need for adequate parking space and fire protection measures, among other safety matters.
It beats one's imagination to see that in the last three years Rajuk had given approval for no fewer than 27,000 buildings! No wonder that given the current state of manpower, there was no oversight at all of the constructions, and the building code was violated at will. Thus streamlining Rajuk's policy for approving housing projects and commercial buildings has become an immediate imperative.
Rajuk's laws and rules, as much as they need updating and streamlining, will continue to be violated in the absence of adequate manpower to oversee the pre approval, the construction, as well as post construction phases of the projects.
We suggest setting up of a task force immediately to recommend actions for Rajuk to become more efficient and functional, and make the capital more habitable.
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