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Dhaka city, once surrounded by ebullient rivers, has a long chronicle behind turning into perhaps one of the world's most water-logged mega cities during the monsoons. The exultation over the city's tranquil charm and fresh watery cool old timers can only feel nostalgic about has given way to a growing concern over water-logging between May and October.
The setback for a city has come about in three inter-related ways: First, the rivers that nurtured the city's environment and served as the ultimate clearing conduit for excess rain water are encroached upon, polluted and continuously losing depth. The riverbeds topped by non-biodegradable waste products like plastic bags have become shallower rendering river banks susceptible to inundation during the monsoons.
The second debilitating factor has been the strangulation of the major natural canal systems in and around the capital city. They are the Degun-Ibrahimpur-Kallyanpur canal that used to drain out to the Turag; the Dhanmondi-Paribagh-Gulishan-Banani-Mohakhali-Begunbari canal that was supposed flush out to the Balu river; and the Segunbagicha-Gerani-Dholaikhal canal that was to have drained out to the Balu and Buriganga rivers.
Dhaka used to be criss-crossed by 65 canals and of them 50 were still flowing up until 1980s.That number has fallen to 43 today, with around 20 of them facing threat due to encroachment . Either those missing canals were lost through grabbing or filling in for construction purposes or use as a garbage dump-yard.
Then there's the perpetually inadequate inner city drainage system. This comprising surface drains, storm sewers and pumping devices is compounded by reckless road digging activities in the thick of monsoons. Thus, you have a recipe for exponential water-logging scourge in the city.
So fault-ridden and decrepit has the infrastructure become that it can't cope with any excess rainfall, which it could only a decade or so ago. Areas that were never inundated before are getting submerged after an hour of downpour!
The vulnerability is only set to grow with climate change-induced extreme weather events likely to spread unpredictably over a year.
Another dimension to the city's disequilibrium centres around land subsidence. The way we are extracting ground water, the subterranean layers could go down causing the surface to sink in. Parts of south Kolkata have been reportedly showing signs of it .What crosses the mind in regard to Dhaka is whether there's been a levelling down of its surface ! Let's conduct targeted research on land subsidence.
In this overall context, we are baffled by a jurisdictional row between Dhaka WASA and two city corporations over the drainage system in the city with water-logging problem as the focal point of attention. Usually, two public service bodies , one elected and the other unelected, tend to squabble over the ownership of powers and functions related to public/civic interest rather than abdicate responsibilities they ought to be sharing . Actually,'abdication' is euphemism for shirking a given duty or remit simply because solving water-logging problem, which has been allowed to fester and deepen so much that no agency considers itself up to the task.
The DWASA managing director unilaterally made the drainage division inactive since 2014 in effect transferring the drainage system to the city corporations. The DWASA board members surprisingly unaware of the policy decision like any responsible citizen rues the fact 178 employees of the drainage division have been sinecures for the last two years drawing salaries without work!
The bottom-line issue is two-fold: First, amending the WASA act into a comprehensive legal framework designed to make the city corporations the lead agency in controlling the water-logging problem. If the mayors are to play their due role they have to be properly mandated , empowered and funded. Of course, DWASA's functions will have to be clearly delineated but made answerable to a unified authority.
A major remedy for water-logging lies with reclamation of the lost water channels or wet lands. Freeing land from grabbers is being problematic. So there is talk of forming an independent task force with army envisaged in a key role. The prime minister will make the 'final call 'in consultation with her cabinet colleagues, it is expected.