Rid Old Dhaka of chemical warehouses

The spectre of death still haunts the streets of Old Dhaka, where many precious lives were lost in raging fires originating from some chemical warehouses. When you have a fire caused by highly flammable substances stored in residential houses, with families living on other floors, it is not an "accident"—it's a sure recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, this has been going on for long, and the high-level promise of relocation of chemical stores and plastic factories to a designated place after the Nimtoli fire—which killed at least 124 people on June 3, 2010—remains unmet even after all these years. A survey done in 2019 by Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) identified 1,924 chemical warehouses in Old Dhaka, with 98 percent being "moderately risky."

Clearly, Old Dhaka is sitting on a ticking time bomb. After the 2010 fire, Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) drafted a plan on relocating the chemical warehouses. However, the BSCIC took eight years to take up the project. The decision was to shift chemical businesses to the city's outskirts in Keraniganj. However, after another devastating fire in Chawkbazar's Churihatta area in February 2019, which killed 71 people, the authorities decided to shift the project site to Munshiganj's Sirajdikhan area. Reportedly, it was scheduled to be completed by June this year, but it appears that the officials would need an extension of at least one more year.

Officials blame delays in selecting the relocation site and land acquisition for this situation. When contacted, the project director said that 70 percent of the project's 310-acre land development is complete. Other important work like the construction of a drainage system, boundary walls, fire station, a Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) and two jetties have not started yet. Also, a separate relocation project for plastic industries, also in Munshiganj, has seen only 1.47 percent progress so far. This extremely slow pace of work is distressing, to say the least.

Meanwhile, the government had a plan to build two temporary sites in Tongi and Shyampur for the warehouses and factories, but it could not be executed either. We urge the government to realise the urgency of relocation on a permanent basis and expedite the work accordingly. There has been enough dilly-dallying with the experiment of temporary sites which, as an environmental expert said, is nothing but "a mockery with the lives of people." The BSCIC's shambolic efforts and foot-dragging in executing the project are inexcusable. Old Dhaka residents deserve better.