Waterlogging in DND area never rang a bell

Trackback URL

Download PDF

Taslima Khatun, along with her four skinny children, stand on a culvert on Matuail Medical Road watching people fishing in the pool formed by heavy rain in the last few days.

Though the scruffy kids, who reside in a rented house at DND (Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra) project area, seemed happy enjoying the catch, Taslima looked blank, indifferent.

“We are here because it has become difficult for us to stay in the room, where there is a little space in between the bed and the tin-shed. We have already put three pieces of brick under the legs of the cot to lift it so that it does not go under water,” Taslima said.

“We remain awake whole night as we don’t want to die from bites of snakes or insects,” said Rahima Khatun, who was also found standing there with her two children to escape from water.

They told The Daily Star yesterday afternoon that most people who do not live in the multi-storey buildings in the DND area are facing similar realities with no firewood to cook and no higher place to take shelter.

Taslima said they are now depending on foods of the nearby shops, which include flattened rice, puffed rice, biscuits and bananas. “We sometimes try to cook at others’ ovens. Though it is not always possible as many other families also try to take a chance.”

Abdul Mannan, a carpenter of Shanir Akhra, said he is passing a tough time with rash on his legs. He said he got them from walking in the black water on the way to his workplace, Rayerbagh.

Rahima said her children cannot go to school due to water logging in the area. “This is not a problem of a week only, rather it is a problem of the whole rainy season. Whenever there is heavy rain, there is water logging,” she said.

Reporters write reports whenever there is water logging in the DND area, but nothing is changed, sighs Rahima, who along with her family members have been living in the area for the last six years.

This sort of sufferings are not new, rather (they are continuing) for almost last two decades, said Shah Alam, a middle aged shopkeeper at Matuail.

Asked about the initiatives of the local lawmakers Salahuddin and Giasuddin during the last BNP-Jamaat rule, Shah Alam, also a former computer composer of daily Banglar Bani, said those were eyewash actually.

The DND project, with 8,340 hectares of land, was taken up in 1965 basically to grow more crops, but its objective totally failed, as more and more people started constructing houses in an unplanned manner.

The tendency was massive in the absence of any government policy of restricting unplanned urbanisation, especially after 1988, as people considered it a safer place because water could not enter even during one of the most devastating floods.

At present nearly 20 lakh people are living in the DND project area, where the population was merely 10,000 back in 1965, said an official of Water Development Board (WDB). “One katha of land that was sold at Tk 10,000 is now sold at Tk 5 to Tk 8 lakh,” he said.

Most of the canals in the area were filled up, while the influential local people gobbled many of those up, he said. “Unless those are recovered, residents of the area will be suffering.”

WDB set up a pump house with the capacity of pumping out 512 cusec water at Shimrail of Siddhirganj in 1968, said Belayet Hossain, a sub-assistant engineer of WDB.

The following governments did not take any initiative to install more pumps in the wake of increased water logging problems, he noted.

Water at the DND canal is now flowing at over nine feet height, which normally flows at 6.5 feet, he said adding that the water also cannot flow to the DND canal due to siltation at various places.

Leave a Reply