What make Dhaka worst among cities?

The picture of the Dhaka city is grim. The conscious citizenry express deep concern about the environmental degradation that evidently manifests its decline. There is no sanitation worth the name for 70 percent of the urban population. Individual toilet facilities are available to only about 30 percent. The sewerage system is abysmal. WASA sources say that out of 13 lakh cubic metres of sewage generated everyday in the city, only about 50 thousand cubic metres could be treated. Reports say that the river Buriganga, Shitalakhya, Turag, Balu and adjacent wetlands including the lakes namely Gulshan-Baridhara and Uttara lakes receive an estimated 12 lakh cubic metres of raw sewage and waste water everyday. The river Buriganga has turned into a narrow polluted canal due to illegal encroachments on both banks and indiscriminate disposal of waste and effluents. Across the city in the densely packed residential areas like Lalbagh, Tantibazar, Patuatuli, Islampur, Wari, Hajaribagh, Posta, Narinda, Gandaria and Mohammadpur where factories and industries big and small live cheek by jowl with homes, alarmed residents know they are slowly being poisoned by lead, chromium cadmium and other hazardous toxic materials leaking out from the Hazaribagh tannery, Dyeing and Textile units and other smelters in the adjoining areas. Residents and workers across the city face disability, lethargy and even death as these industries and shanty town units process and reprocess industrial by-products: a class of toxic metals and chemicals called hazardous wastes.

Leaving aside Buriganga and Shitalakhya that now symbolise not life but death, water in the Gulshan-Baridhara and Uttara lakes is now a lifeless receptacle of human wastes, raw sewage and toxic industrial effluents from various industrial units of Tejgaon, Tongi and Badda areas. According to a study conducted by the DoE, these lakes' water carries a bacteria count of 1200 in place of 200 or less that is considered to be tolerable bacteria count in water bodies. Uttara lake was once a vast water body stretching from one end of Sector 3 to Sector 11 at least 3 km in length and 400 m wide. Because of indiscriminate dumping of household garbages, wastes and raw sewage from the bustling residential buildings all around, the lake's width and length have shrunk. The lake now is a stagnant pool of water, a giant sewer. With construction going apace in the RAJUK allotted land and people coming in ever increasing number to settle at Uttara, Joar Sahara, Badda and adjoining private lands, and RAJUK expanding its territory every year, the pollution scenario will be much worse. It is high time WASA devised an articulate plan to stop flow of sewage and wastewater into lakes and rivers that are considered "life line" of the city. People wonder if RAJUK prepared the Master Plan with any vision and forethought with regard to an articulate sewer line that would drain the raw sewage and waste water to places away from the habitat.

Conscious citizenry express their concern about the livability of the Dhaka city itself. The city is now under assault on all fronts like land, water and air. Garbage has posed a major threat to health and sanitation of the people in and around the city limits. In many cases garbage is not picked up in the teeming city suburbs. Filthy water and human excreta along with other wastes in choked drains stagnate throughout the year till the rainy season washes a part of it into the city lakes and the river Buriganga and Shitalakhya. Dhaka City Corporation with their best efforts can only remove half of the 4,000 tons of garbages generated daily and sadly true, their disposal off limits the city zone poses further threat to health and sanitation of the citizenry. Nearly one million tonnes of wastes every year are dumped into public land, leaching into the water you drink, mingling with the air you breathe. The rest 50 percent of the solid waste generated daily is allowed to decompose and putrefy on the roadside. As already mentioned, quite a substantial portion of it goes into the drains, choking them and creating slush and stink all around, besides being breeding grounds for diseases. The residents in the vast posh area stretching from German embassy point to Grameen Phone customers service office in Gulshan have the bitter experience of living in an environment thick with foul smell coming out from the stinking and clogged underground drains. The story is the same or worse for many other areas of the city where garbage cleaning is a low priority job.

Dhaka city's crumbling sewer network can hardly cope out with the increasing load of sewage generated daily in a fast expanding city of 10 million people living in about 400 sq. km. area. Often the sewer line and water pipeline run parallel or one close to the other. In most places they break down which remains untraced for years. The result: piped water gets contaminated. And citizens using such piped water are easy prey to diseases like diarrhea, dysentery, jaundice, typhoid and skin diseases. On the other hand, most of the city's garbage collection points are nothing more than rotting open heaps of refuse.

Shockingly, as this capital city unfolds, population pressure increases, industrial concerns both small and large expand and the society as a whole 'prospers', its trash -- mainly hazardous plastics, metals and packaging -- is growing exponentially. With the failure to reprocess waste, Dhaka city is running out of space to dump the growing mountains of garbage. Mountains of garbage heaped up in New Market, Thatari Bazar, Fakirapool Bazar, Shantinagar Bazar and Kawran Bazar and Uttara market are not fully picked up. People only wish if the Mayor had ever any time and opportunity to visit these Kucha Bazar areas he would have a bitter shock to see rotten wastes piled up on pathways just close to the food shops, groceries, vegetable stalls and eateries.

What makes this city so dirty? Surely, it's a combination of slothful city corporation activities unyielding to change outdated waste disposal practices that can no longer keep up with population growth, new kinds of trash like plastics and a near-total apathy of citizens.

Shockingly true, with RAJUK's ever increasing appetite for money and connivance of the original Master Plan, plots have been allotted to interest groups and influential persons even just over the Uttara lake. In Sector No. 3 of Uttara Model Town, the sight of the tall residential apartments on one side of the lake will spring surprise. The Master Plan kept enough space for a decent walkway to be constructed allowing residents to walk and breathe freely in an open space by the bank of the lake. This Master Plan was violated or rather robbed of by some interested quarters or officials. The visionary planners of the day must be deeply disturbed to see how their "Model Township" burst into an illusion. The overwhelming feeling is that RAJUK and other utility services are living on an overdose of promise and underdose of performance.

As living conditions in the city and suburbs deteriorate, a growing breed of concerned citizens is rallying around to fight for their rights -- and winning them too. RAJUK allotted nine plots on the other side of the lake in Sector No. 13, it is reportedly learnt, and one plot just over the lake. A group of enterprising men led by one Dr. Shahadat Ali and Mr Khurshiduzzaman who have built a house in Sector No. 13 close to the lake sides, got this illegal allotments cancelled. Now with the initiative of that group and active cooperation of RAJUK, a decent "walk-way" running about 567 metres by the side of the lake has been built and flower plants planted. For residents of Sector No. 3, 5, 11, 13 and 14, this is the only oasis, a small breathing space in the valley of densely packed residential quarters. But breathing has become difficult because the walk-way and adjoining places by the side of the lake reek with a horrible stench coming from the lake water.

Parks or open spaces are just lungs for a city. How could this fact be ignored either by RAJUK or city corporations from the beginning upto this time? Unsurprisingly, the slum and squatter population has been increasing at more than double the general growth rate of urban population. It is reportedly learnt from an official statistics that the number of slum dwellers in Dhaka city will cross 10 million mark in the next five years as the rural poor in absence of job opportunities and loss of farmland in their areas are continuously pouring into the capital city Dhaka. It is not only the absence of amenities but the unclear way of life and utter disregard of civic obligation make these slums extremely filthy. Across Sector No. 5, 14, 11 and 12 in Uttara, slums live cheek by jowl with beautifully designed residential buildings. The slum dwellers, mostly construction workers, otherlabour force, hawkers and small traders have been living permanently in almost all the open spaces and vacant plots with families for years. Most appalling, they have built Kutcha latrines over the water body, mostly the stagnant pools of water. Possibly through water pipe leakage, such water-body covered with water hyacinth is a positive threat to residents living close to it.

Sure enough, because of the apathy of residents as well as the authorities concerned filthy water has even seeped into residents' dwelling areas.

Not even the most liberal citizenry could agree that such slums, a positive threat to health and organised civic life could be allowed to spring up in an ever increasing number in an area called "Model Town". These people have the right to live and live decently in places that the government could choose best.

Because of our total apathy urban environment has suffered a deep degradation. If a township has been built without keeping any space for the kids to play, move about and breathe freely, then these children will spend their time watching TV, and will become obese, sick and fall victim to premature diabetes. Of late, Dhaka has attained the dubious distinction of being the most polluted city in the world. Unfortunately, our cities have suffered at the hands of policy makers. They never cared to take note of the fact that cities are the spiritual workshop of the nation. They are manifestations not only of physical architecture but the architecture of the mind. We can't let the rot either persist or spread. Hopefully, a change in attitude is in the offing:

Dhakaites aren't resigning to their fate. Worsening civic and environmental conditions in Dhaka have nudged citizens across the city out of their slumber. They have come together in groups to raise issues and fight for their rights.

Md Asadullah Khan is former teacher of physics and Controller of Examinations, BUET.