THE government and private developers are at constant work to fill up vast areas of seasonally-flooded wetlands in and around the capital city Dhaka and are converting those areas to housing projects. These areas were earlier identified as flood flow zones to ensure the safety of the capital from over-flooding in absence of drainage and water reservoirs around the city to allow sustainable growth of the capital. During the monsoon season when there is a significant amount of rainfall, rainwater is drained out through these wetlands that also work as natural retention storage systems. News reports have it that 187 square kilometers of wetland have already been developed in only 13 years since the passage of the Wetland and Open Space Conservation Act 2000.
A local daily, quoting urban planners on Sunday said that dirt-filling at wetlands has increased after the government notification of the strategic master plan for Dhaka, known as the Detailed Area Plan (DAP) in July 2010. The act was supposed to save the wetlands but the filling of the dirt is destroying the water bodies and low land. A BUET study of satellite images of Dhaka and bordering areas between 2000 and 2010 showed that the capital lost 20 square kilometers of wetland on an average a year. On the eastern fringes of the city from Pragati Sarani to River Sitalakhya, an estimated 150 square kilometers of low-lying areas, almost the size of the Dhaka Metropolitan Area, is now under various housing development schemes.
As we see we have laws but they are not applied to save the low lands and environment but are rather skillfully violated to promote self interests of persons at high places of the government. Most government leaders have a personal interest with regard to land developers and house builders. They are in fact using their positions to help them and this in turn is destroying the wetlands and the eco-system. Meanwhile, government agencies such as the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) have destroyed almost all canals inside the city. The drying of the wetland around the city is also causing a steady fall in the city’s underground water aquifer level poising threats to the regular supply of drinking water. But the authorities are rather using one government project or the other to bring the wetlands to new city development schemes. The development of Pangaon Inland Container Terminal, new central jail and an army training ground at Keraniganj on the main flood flow and sub-flood flow zones and agricultural land under the DAP has in fact undermined the entire land conservation scheme. These projects are encouraging new housing projects and commercial expansion in those areas.
Even as we see rivers like Dhaleshwari, Turag, Buriganga and Bangshi are not spared by land grabbers. Lakes at Dhanmondi, Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara and Uttara have already lost much of their water body. Reports said Rajuk itself is filling up wetlands for housing projects or approving private housing projects in those areas. So the question is: if the government itself becomes a party to land grabbers who else will save it and save the city. We urge the government to enforce the laws.
