Sayedabad pins hope on new mayor

How many parks does Dhaka city need? According to rules, it should be 92, one for each ward. But we have only 54, with several of them having ceased to exist and many threatened. At least 10 parks have been replaced with a community centre, kitchen market, mosque, rickshaw garage or truck parking lot, mostly by the city corporation itself. This is the picture when an urban expert, Prof Nazrul Islam, says every 10,000 city residents need an open space of four acres -- park or playground -- for healthy development of children and prevention of diseases related to physical activities. The Daily Star reports how and why we are squeezing our breathing spaces in our metropolis where 15 million people cram in. The seventh report of the series is published today.

Under the very nose of their custodian, the Dhaka city corporation, the parks are gradually being destroyed one by one. And Sayedabad Park might be another victim.

It was built in the 1980s during the rule of HM Ershad on 0.05 acres of land, now along Mayor Mohammad Hanif Flyover.

Children played in the swings and slides, while adults passed their leisure sitting on the benches with family members or neighbours after exercise.

The park was the only open space for over 50,000 residents of south and north Sayedabad.

The scenario of the park, close to Sayedabad Bus Terminal, started to change in the 1990s when transport owners began dumping rubbish on the parkland, said locals.

Eventually, transport owners of the terminal stared using the land as a parking lot and two public toilets were also built there but the city corporation remained silent.

Later, some shops and another toilet were built on the parkland next to the busy Jatrabari-Tikatuli road but those were demolished in January 2007 during the army-backed interim government's tenure.

Mohammad Kabir Miyan, a resident of Koratitola, said he moved in to the area in 1986 and was lucky to get the park for playing. But his eight-year-old daughter is becoming dependent on computer games which can gradually make her aloof, the father feared.

Delu Ahmed of Sayedabad said, "Whenever we felt low, we went to the park to pep ourselves up. My younger brother would come to my house every weekend and we strolled and jogged together in the park."

In June 2010, the park got a new look; this time Orion Group, the firm constructing Mayor Mohammad Hanif Flyover, made a shed for labourers and a three-story office building on the parkland by surrounding the park with a concrete boundary, denying the general public entry.

But the good thing is Corporate Manager of Orion Group Ashfaqul Alam said they will hand over the park by July after the construction work is complete.

Orion Group Managing Director Salman Karim said they are using the place as per a contract with the DCC, and they will renovate the place by setting up children's rides and hand it over to the DCC.

But the locals fear that the city corporation has different plans about the park; otherwise the office building of the firm would be built as a makeshift structure, not as a concrete one.

On this issue, Chief Estate Officer of Dhaka South City Corporation Khalid Ahmed said he cannot say anything about the park unless they get it back.

Now the residents pin their hope on the new DSCC mayor for the park that was once theirs.