Will one day become a dead city?

The capital Dhaka was once a dream city for people from other parts of the country. Some used to come here in search of livelihood, others to see the beauty of the capital. Dhaka was once literally a tidy, pollution-free city. But with time that Dhaka is now an Uninhabitable and boring city. Step by step danger is here. The city is now full of concrete and brick with fresh air is like a dream. There is no greening but there are various types of pollution. The flow of life is stopped here due to traffic jam. Sometimes intense heat, sometimes waterlogging with light rain is a common experience here. In the two City Corporations of Dhaka, 40 percent of construction and concrete covered space are supposed but there are 82 percent.

Roads, water bodies and open spaces are supposed to be 60 percent, but there are only 24 percent. Fire incidents happening regularly. On the other hand, 100 to 120 people are supposed to live per acre, on the contrary, 400 to 500 people are living there. In a word, although somehow people are still living here, many people may want to flee from this city because of the danger of deteriorating the situation.

The master plan to build a planned Dhaka city was done during the British period, in 1917. The plan was made keeping in mind that Dhaka will be a plain land and a rainy area. But the plan remained on paper, never materialised. Instead, the unplanned expansion has been directed in the opposite direction. After 1917, a master plan was drawn up again in 1959, but nothing was done. After independence, another master plan called Detailed Area Plan (DAP) was drawn up by a committee of country planners headed by Rajuk. All of these can be said to have been laborious.

All the developed countries of the world, even the major cities of less developed countries are built according to plan. In the case of Dhaka, there was this opportunity; But that opportunity was not utilized. Indifference of concerned authorities, extreme arbitrariness in some cases has brought Dhaka to the present stage. Our point is, that if we are not aware from now, Dhaka will become a dead city one day. None of us want that. The livability of Dhaka must be brought back.