Barely an hour's rainfall on the first day of September brought Dhaka city to a near collapse. Dhakaites all throughout the capital suffered miseries hours on end due to the long tailbacks caused by severe traffic jams in the heavily inundated streets. In a rare moment of unity, frustrated city-dwellers posted photos and status updates of a deluged Dhaka and of people navigating the streets under waist-deep water on social media decrying the capital's pathetic state of affairs.

The state of Dhaka -- what is supposed to be the capital city of a "lower middle" income country -- was telling after those couple of minutes of rain. That the capital city of a country can be brought to a standstill due to less than an hour of rainfall is absolutely shameful. That the drainage management system of a city with one of the highest population densities in the word is basically dysfunctional is appalling. The disastrous state of Dhaka's drainage system was most glaringly visible in that short period of time during which the city was brought to its knees.

Bangladesh has historically relied on wetlands and the gravity drainage system of khals (canals) which are linked to surrounding rivers. Before modernisation, these natural canals served as the mode of disposal of runoff water from floods and such, as well as means of transportation. However, with time, due to rapid urbanisation water bodies and flood plains started being filled up (especially towards the end of the 90s) for various commercial and industrial purposes and water retention capacity fell sharply along with the availability of public spaces. Despite the enactment of the Water Body Conservation Act 2000, Dhaka has lost huge amounts of wetlands over time.

Around 80 percent of Dhaka city is drained through these channels and the city is divided into 12 drainage zones based on the topography of the area, khal systems and surrounding rivers. Dholai Khal, that once used to be an essential route for boats, has nearly vanished within the past four decades due to the city government's detrimental policies that closed the khal for road construction. The primary drainage channel of the Segunbagicha Khal -- starting from Shahbagh to Jirani Khal -- of central Dhaka is now mostly under illegal occupation of influential people in the area. Begunbari Khal, Ibrahimpur Khal, Gopibagh Khal and many other canals have similarly come under encroachment and acquisition for the construction of roads, box culvert and drains. These actions have rendered these canals defunct of their original purpose which was to channel the city's drainage water.

Wasa and Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), the authorities primary responsible of freeing the city of its waterlogging woes, are doing a questionable job of fulfilling their civic duty. These entities (including city planners) that have a habit of deflecting blame on one another for the lack of a proper infrastructure dedicated to manage the capital's drainage water system must be held accountable.

Will the honourable Mayors and Wasa officials give us a glimpse into what exactly is being done, if anything, with regard to the drainage system that needs to be expanded by a whopping 40 percent to accommodate the city's rainfall induced flooding and other waste water? Apart from attending roundtable discussions, public conferences and forming ad hoc "committees" to address the problem of waterlogging, will the newly-elected mayors and concerned authorities tell us if any remotely concrete solutions have been acted upon in this regard? What's happening with the city corporations' project in conjunction with Wasa that is yet to mitigate any of the problems regarding waterlogging?

DNCC Mayor Annisul Huq apparently visited Mirpur along with Wasa officials and directed the latter to take "proper initiatives". What were these "initiatives" and how much progress has been made thus far, if any? Will DSCC Mayor Sayeed Khokon, instead of placing the blame on "bureaucratic reasons", tell us what his three-member committee created with the sole purpose of easing waterlogging in the city has achieved so far? The committee is supposed to have submitted a report detailing possible solutions to waterlogging by now. How is DCC going about fixing the acute problem of manholes and ill-maintained roads that exacerbate the problem of waterlogging that continues to disrupt the lives of commuters on a daily basis? Is it too much to ask for a follow-up with transparency, efficiency and specificity instead of vague assurances (in the form of "committees" being created and "initiatives" being taken) and platitudes thrown our way every single time?

How assured are we to be when some authorities, with their comical statements, blatantly shun responsibility? Just recently, a certain higher-up posted a Facebook status update that basically blamed solid waste for clogging up the drains for flooding the streets this Tuesday while likening the situation to that of cities such as New York and Bangkok (meaning, the catastrophic waterlogging seen on Tuesday was inevitable and would have happened in any other city!)

It seems like a basic understanding of Dhaka's drainage disaster of untold proportions eludes many of those who need to understand it the most. The bottomline is this: the problem of waterlogging cannot be solved until and unless we are serious about building a drainage system that actually works in the long-run.

A few sewerage lines and drains do not amount to a "drainage system". The latter should consist of a network of sewerage lines and drains that are interconnected to water bodies such as ponds, lakes and canals. But in order to do this, we must first save our water bodies that are rapidly shrinking due to indiscriminate encroachment by land grabbers. The concerned authorities -- from Wasa officials to our new mayors -- must stop pointing fingers at one another and sincerely tackle Dhaka's embarrassing waterlogging mess which is probably one of the worst anywhere in the world.

The writer is a jounalist at The Daily Star.