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Comes waterlogging, comes a committee

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Waterlogging in the city turns out to be a regular event, with mere forming of high-level government committees as the problem worsens during the rainy season and practically doing very little to address the matter.
While recommendations of two high-powered committees formed last year have still remained in dark, an inter-ministerial meeting chaired by State Minister for LGRD
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and Cooperatives Ziaul Haq Zia yesterday formed a seven-member committee in the face of water logging in vast city areas due to incessant rainfall since Saturday night.
The committee headed by Dhaka City Corporation chief engineer has been asked to submit its report within a week.
"The committee will identify the waterlogged areas in the capital and causes of water logging," the minister told The Daily Star after the meeting held at the Secretariat that also went under water.
"We will sit again after getting the committee report," he said.
The meeting noted that narrowing down of three drains through Kamalapur area that carry water from the Secretariat and Motijheel commercial areas is the cause of water logging in those areas, the state minister said, adding, "We asked the authorities concerned to take immediate steps to widen the drains."
High officials of the Dhaka Wasa, Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), Water Development Board and Rajuk were present at the meeting.
Last year, when most of the city went under water for several days, the government formed an inter-ministerial committee headed by LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan.
Housing and Public Works Minister Mirza Abbas, Forest and Environment Minister Tariqul Islam, Dhaka City Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka, State Minister for Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Quamrul Islam, State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar, State Minister for
Land Abdus Sattr and lawmakers of city constituencies were members of theinter-ministerial committee.
On August 7, 2004, the committee meeting decided to demolish illegal structures from 26 canals and rivers in and around the capital for smooth functioning of the drainage system, but little has been done so far.
The meeting formed an expert committee to prepare plans for recovering encroached water bodies in and around the city.
The expert committee submitted its report with 26-point recommendations to resolve water logging problem of Dhaka city that emphasised demolishing illegal structures from the city canals.
A land ministry report in October last year also identified illegal encroachment of city canals as responsible for water logging and warned that the situation would deteri-orateif such practiceis not stopped.
Of the 35 canals, only 14 could carry away water while illegal structures like houses and roads grabbed rest of the canals halting flow of water, the report said.
"United efforts of Dhaka City Corporation, Rajuk, Dhaka Wasa and Dhaka district administration are necessary to make the canals live by demolishing the illegal structures," said the report submitted to a parliamentary body.
But the recommendations are still unmet other than Dhaka Wasa's scanty efforts to demolish a few illegal structures on the canals.