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Govt plans to construct bridge over Hatirjheel

Move to save wetland, make east-west road-link in city

Sultana Rahman
The government has finally decided to construct a bridge ,ovcr Hatirjheel wetland, instead of filling up the water body for an east-west connecting road in -Phakacity.
’Hie planned bridge will connect Tongi Diversion Road with Rampura enabling vehicles from (Western part of the city to move Jo the eastern side through
Panthapath-Sonargaon road, avoiding the existing routes via Moghbazar or Mohakhali.
The decision came at a meeting of Dhaka TYansport Coordination Board (DTCB) with other government agencies concerned on September 25, sourcessaid.
Representatives from the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), Department of Environment (DoE), PublicWorks Department
(PWD), Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk), Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buel) were present at the meeting.
"DCC will prepare a new PCP (project concept paper) for constructing the bridge. We have taken the decision after a detailed environmental survey which refers to construction of
the bridge over Hatirjheel that will serve both purposes of road networking and wetland preservation," said Quamrul Islam Siddique, executive director of DTCB.
After a lot of discussions the decision came as a relief to environmentalists who stood against the project of filling up the city's last remaining water body. The Star City also published a series of stories on the government
plan.
"The proposed road link is essential to ease city's increasing traffic congestion as the city lacks an east-west road network," Siddiquesaid.
As there is no straight road network from Panthapath to Rampura; commuters have to take the longer routes of Moghbazar-Malibagh-Mouchak or Mohakhali-Gulshan to reach Rampura and other places in the
city's eastern part that creates severe traffic congestion.
The government earlier planned to acquire 200 acres of land in Rampura-Hatirjheel-Bcgunbari wetland to launch the controversial development project, which proposed to fill up the water body and build a connectingroad.
, The Urban Planning Department of Buet in the meantime conducted a detailed survey of the entire area considering all environmental aspects and recently suggested construction of the bridge for the sake of preserving the water body.
The survey report says if Hatirjheel is filled up, the city would face severe waterlogging problem and even a slight rain would inundate the entire area around Hatirjheel.
While protesting against the earlier project, environmentalists said the area was naturally designed to retain storm water of an area covering 40 square kilometers.
DCC prepared the project concept paper violating the Dhaka Master Plan (Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan) as it has clearly marked the area as a flood retention, point. It also violated the wetland conservation act 2000 that bars filling up ofwelland.
"The recent floods and waterlogging as a result of heavy downpour have prompted the policymakers to take such a decision to save Hatirjheel and revise the previous plan of constructing a road over it," a senior official at the DCCsaid.