Excuses do not drain water
After decades of suffering from waterlogging during monsoon seasons, residents of Chattogram seem to have no one to blame but Mother Nature, or so claim the officials of two key government bodies responsible for making the city liveable. According to a Prothom Alo report, officials of the Chattogram Development Authority (CDA) and the Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) have blamed the severity of 102 millimetres of rainfall over a 24-hour period—from noon on July 27 to noon on July 28—for the resultant waterlogging, which left parts of the city submerged in waist-deep water for hours.
As usual, the authorities' failure to promptly and properly implement waterlogging mitigation initiatives was conveniently brushed aside. Reportedly, the CDA, CCC, and Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) have together spent almost a decade and about Tk 10,000 crore to find solutions to the port city's waterlogging woes. Yet, with every bout of heavy rain, streets and homes are inundated, vehicles damaged, businesses disrupted, and traffic brought to a standstill. Sometimes, lives are lost as well, as open drains vanish under swollen water making them difficult to see or avoid. Still, no one accepts accountability.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The CDA, CCC, and Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) have together spent almost a decade and about Tk 10,000 crore to find solutions to the port city's waterlogging woes. Yet, with every bout of heavy rain, streets and homes are inundated, vehicles damaged, businesses disrupted, and traffic brought to a standstill. Sometimes, lives are lost as well, as open drains vanish under swollen water making them difficult to see or avoid.
In 2014, the CCC launched a project to address the crisis. Scheduled for completion in 2017, it remains unfinished 11 years later. Likewise, two separate projects by the CDA and BWDB—taken up in 2017 and slated for completion by 2020 and 2021—are still incomplete. Over the last eight years, numerous meetings have been held to speed up the work, but little has changed. After the interim government took over, relevant authorities were directed to complete 27 of the 39 necessary sluice gates by May 2025. So far, only 25 have been built. The authorities also failed to start pump-houses in waterlogging hotspots to drain out accumulated water and prevent hill cutting, which often clogs the canals. Despite this track record of delays and neglect, responsible agencies continue to absolve themselves by blaming natural causes, and sometimes each other.
It is high time public institutions in Bangladesh learnt to take responsibility for their failure to deliver on their mandates. Sporadic canal cleaning or declogging is not enough. If citizens are dumping waste indiscriminately, it is the city corporation's duty to raise awareness and, if necessary, enforce penalties. Most importantly, the relevant authorities must prevent unplanned urbanisation and the encroachment of low-lying lands. They also must stop using low-lying areas for development projects. At the same time, the approval of flawed megaprojects that worsen the problem must cease. Unless these core issues are addressed, Chattogram's waterlogging nightmare will remain unresolved.
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