Photo: Messenger
The incessant downpour of the last three days has made living and commuting in the country, especially in the metropolis, next to impossible to say the least. The perennial water stagnation on major city roads is happening with full fury and this is slowing down vehicular movement thereby increasing the suffering of the people manifold.
Firstly, office goers are getting soaked to the skin and secondly, they are getting late in reaching office in the stipulated time. The woes of the common people also increase as they have to keep working despite heavy downpour. They have to earn wages on a daily basis to bring food to the family. This is a never ending story that happens every year at some particular time of the season.
Rain is a natural phenomenon and there is no way one can stop them from pouring. But, what is painful is why rain water must remain stagnant on roads when we know that crores of takas have been spent in the name of constructing storm sewer and other infrastructures in the last 30years. Every year we are told that all the canals of Dhaka city have been filled up and encroached by the influential people of the locality and as a result excess water finds no channel to clear out of the city. Now our question is, are those influential people more powerful than the government of the day?
Since it is the question of the wellbeing of the citizens, why can’t we take strong and permanent action to recover the canals from those people and bring them back to the original shape so that they can function properly?
The city fathers must take the issue of the stagnation of rain water more seriously and go all out to recover all the canals from the unholy grip of some so-called powerful people. Good thing is, we have the example of recovering river bank land before us.
Messenger/Disha
