DSCC recovers Tantibazar Park after a decade

The Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) recently recovered Tantibazar Park, which had been under the occupation of grabbers for almost a decade.

But the DSCC authorities are yet to take any move to renovate it.

Once the 0.33 acre park under ward-71 (old) had slides, swings, and seesaws inside it -- something rarely seen in today's Dhaka packed with traffic and concrete buildings.

Through the passage of time, Tantibazar Park had faced quite some changes, from becoming a dumpster to a parking lot, and lost its real features. It was a retreat abuzz with chirping and whoops of children but it turned into a nuisance with time.

The Daily Star ran a story on Tantibazar Park in April.

Though the trucks were removed from inside the park, the owners are still using the land around it to park the vehicles.

A few months ago trucks used to be parked inside it. Photo: Rashed Shumon, Amran Hossain

Chief Estate Officer of DSCC Khalid Ahmed said, "Our first priority was to recover the park land, which we already did and now we will think how we can maintain it as a park."

Khalid said they will gradually go for freeing other parks under their jurisdiction but due to a lack of police members, drives against grabbers cannot be conducted regularly.

There are 54 parks in Dhaka city, but many are occupied or grabbed or threatened.

Yousuf Ali, a resident of Ray Saheb Bazar and a college student, said the authorities should take an immediate initiative to renovate the park and regularly maintain it as this will be the only place in the area where people can breathe some fresh air.

"I played in this park in my childhood," said another, Md Shakil Ahmed. "But our children are deprived of the joy of playing outdoors which is necessary for their healthy growth."