When shall residents see the end of irrational road digging?

This is nothing new for the city dwellers that face multiple civic problems, especially during the rainy season every year.

Due to the capital’s poor drainage system, waterlogging remains a perennial reality in most parts of the city.

It is at this time various utility service providers start road digging despite the fact it exacerbWhen shall residents see the end of irrational road digging? ates the already existing problems.

It is not that the residents do not complain about it, they do it every year.

Moreover, the press remains vocal against the menace round the year.

But all is futile, against the greed of officials of relevant organisations that take up allegedly unnecessary projects so that unutilised money of annual allocation does not have to be returned.

In their work, the contractors employed by the utility service providers ignore the Dhaka City Road Digging Rules 2019 that stipulates that work will have to be completed within 30 days but, according to a report yesterday, they usually take three to seven months to complete their projects.

Not to mention that there is hardly found any coordination between the utility service providers in this regard.

Report says that at Mirpur-2, WASA dug roads in Monipur and Shinepukur areas since June, but it has abandoned the work keeping the construction materials and pipes beside the dug part of the road creating problems for the people.

This digging is a clear violation of the Dhaka City Road Digging Rules 2019 that discourages road cutting in June, July, August, September and October when we witness rainfall.

Same scenario is found as Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited has been digging a road from Mohanagar project to Kakrail since March this year and it is now continuing.

If service providers such as DESA, WASA, and city corporations authorities take up projects in a planned way, not only the plights of the residents of the capital would have lessened, a lot of public money would also have been saved.

What is the point of digging a newly constructed road just after one year to install the WASA by the way?

Is it not more logical to construct the road after installing the pipeline?

But as there is no coordination between, say, the WASA and the city corporation authorities, due to this kind of irrational planning and taking up projects, public funds are being wasted on the one hand and public sufferings are being increased on the other hand.

This has to change.