Recovering city's canals

In keeping with its tradition, the Poribesh Bachao Andolon has raised its voice in favour of recovering the city's canals. The environment advocacy group has also demanded framing of a comprehensive wetland conservation law on top of implementation of the existing one immediately. Clearly, the urgency of the demand looks more compelling than ever before because of the state of the canals in the capital. Against its demand, the statement made by an assistant inspector general of police -who spoke on behalf of Ananda Police Housing Scheme -and a vice-president of the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh at a public consultation that Dhaka city needs no wetlands and water retention areas around it calls for an analysis. Vested interest groups vehemently oppose the Dhaka's detailed area plan (DAP) because its implementation will foil many of the illegal plans and evil designs which the influence-peddling businessmen in the real estate sector have already pursued and will pursue. Even the latest DAP has been engineered somewhat under pressure to accommodate a few cartographic changes that were not there in the original one.

Thus the recovery of canals along with preservation of wetlands and water retention areas should be seen in a perspective where short-sighted opponents are always active. Disproportionate water-logging following negligible rainfalls and the attendant ills have produced little impact on people who are driven by immediate material gains at the cost of Dhaka city's future. If canals are illegally occupied, those have to be vacated by any means no matter who the grabbers are. Political or other clouts should not stand in the way of a firm commitment to get the job done. No government wants to enrage influential coteries for fear of unpopularity but here is a task, if performed with sincerity, there is every likelihood that the government will earn overwhelming popularity.

Of the 58 canals, not a single one is in a healthy state. Some of those are in names only. About two and a half dozens can still be recovered almost in their original shapes if the authorities are willing to make the right move. Intriguingly, canals are nobody's business. Those are owned by the district administration, their maintenance is the responsibility of the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority and the city corporations coordinate the management of the canals. In a situation like this, no one is willing to take the responsibility of recovering those from illegal grabbers.

So the crux of the problem lies here. If the canals are brought under the administration of a single authority, the job can be accomplished with strong political backing. Preferably, the two city corporations should be assigned the job and they will issue eviction notices for the illegal occupants of the canals to remove their structures within a reasonable time. Usually such moves are stalled by filing cases against the agencies launching the eviction drive. If prior court orders are taken for eviction in order to pre-empt such ploys resorted to by illegal grabbers, the drive may be successful. But first of all, there has to be enough political will required for the purpose.