Shafiq 1

To: Maleka Sarwar

From: Sadi Shafiq

ID # 041 283 030

Eng105, Section 7

Date: 20th December 2005

Our Dhaka and the Beautification:

Is the beatification logical while there are other problems?

Beauty is in the eyes of beholder. So the city dwellers cannot enjoy the beauty with

having problems up-to their neck. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, consists 11 million

inhabitants who live, strive and struggle to lead a life here. But the most basic rights are

unavailable to the most of the inhabitants of this capital city. There are many problems in this

city and these problems have reached at their peak. At the same time the government took an

attempt at so called Beautification of the Dhaka City.

People used to call Dhaka the city of mosques. But if the mayor has his way, theyll

soon be calling it the beautified city! (Sadique). But mostly the glamour of this

beautification was due to SAARC summit. It was not a real attempt to make the city

beautiful. The effort of decorating the outer-look ignoring all the problems created a question.

Beautification of Dhaka city is required but the basic problems like traffic jam, power

shortage, water crisis etc. should be given first priority.

SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit was the main

reason behind the beautification. The government of Bangladesh made the effort to finish this

beautification program before the summit had begun. We know that our Dhaka is highly

polluted and populated, and it is a city of problems. These could have given an odd view to
 Shafiq 2

our honorable foreign guests. So the government tried to create a dazzling appearance of the

city, an ornamental job.

The government coordinated this whole process with the help of both private sectors

and government agencies. The government was not the main source of fund. Different

organizations were outsourced to do the job with their own money. Dhaka City Corporation

(DCC) was the coordinator and there were 73 organizations behind this project. A cell has

been formed (Dhaka City Beautification Cell) consisting members from DCC, DESA,

WASA, Police etc. to look after the project. The mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka is the head of

this cell.

The beautification cell divided the city into 109 zones depending on the length of the

roads. There were also two parks to redecorate under this program. Different organizations

had been appointed for different parts. The main workings had started in the month of

June04. Those agencies are also responsible to maintain their parts. The 73 organizations

and institutions which have been allotted 109 different sections of roads and street

intersections for beautification will be continuing the work and maintaining those till Match

2008 (Alam). They can place only three advertisements in their parts.

DCC planned to decorate roads, medians, pavements, islands and roundabouts. The

total plan was to deck out the capital before the SAARC summit had begun. The

beautification program included decorating the landscape with grass, trees, and ornamental

things and making fountains, steel sculptures etc. They tried to make better sidewalks,

illuminate the city with different kinds of lightings. But the fact is there was no additional

approach to work out the previously existing problems, which might affect the image of the

city.

To have the proper idea of the city, we should take a glimpse of the real conditions

that exists. Dhaka is the largest city and the capital of Bangladesh. It has a population of 11
 Shafiq 3

million. The density of population of Dhaka is 225 (approx.) persons per hectare, which

means it is the most densely populated city in the world. Most of the inhabitants of Dhaka are

living below the poverty line and they do not have proper dwellings. But Dhaka is the most

important region as the capital city of Bangladesh. The city is important for the political

reasons, economical affairs and so on.

The governments view was that they would represent the city as a beautiful city to

the SAARC guests. Though it was a costly job, the sight of those beautiful plants and flowers

are refreshing change to the people. The government thinks that the beautification program

has made some parts of Dhaka city really beautiful such as the Airport Road, Bijoy Sharani,

Shanshad Bhaban road, Panthapath etc.

Now comes the most vital factor, money. The project required a lot of money and its

maintenance cost was also high. This beautification project was too expensive for a country

like Bangladesh even though private companies paid the bills. Also, the beautification project

was not friendly to the people as it created some hazards in the daily life. There is no doubt,

Dhaka city needed to be beautiful, as the city dwellers were becoming frustrated and

disturbed about the rapid and unplanned growth of Dhaka, where no place was left to be

refreshed or relaxed. For this, the DCBC project should not be only visual stimuli. People

should get the chance to enjoy and feel the beauty. People cannot enjoy the beauty while

being stuck in the traffic jam. The designers had not provided any arrangement for the

passerby to sit and relax.

Beautification of the Dhaka city- it sounds that this program would make the Dhaka

city beautiful. For sure a beautiful, clean and harmonious Dhaka city is the dream of all its

dwellers. But this approach was only focused on the main roads of Dhaka. There was no

attempt to remove the open dustbins from the middle of the roads, clean the lanes, lakes,

dams or parks or to improve the conditions of slums to beautify the city. Rather all the
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attempts of beautification were taken based on only those main roads through which visitors

of SAARC Summit would go.

Again, in some places this program stopped working beforehand though the operation

was not completely done. And also, due to lack of maintenance many parts of beautification

already have started to lose its beauty. So, if we observe the circumstances, it is clear that the

project will fail to hold on the beauty of Dhaka for four years. The effect of beautification

will not last for long.

Actually the government, who is the host of this gardening (that has been taking place

in the city) fails to provide shelter to all of its inhabitants and has no bearing on the real

issues. There are about 3000 slums in the Dhaka city and 30% of the total population of

Dhaka city lives in those slums. Surely, the number of people living in slums will increase

significantly in near future. Our government fails to provide most basic and fundamental

requirements of life to the present slum dwellers. Slum life goes on without any proper water

supply, housing, sanitation etc. I heard that in some of the slums one has to pay one taka to

get a bucket of water from a water outlet. One taka for a bucket of water is expensive

considering that municipality charges four and half taka for one thousand liters of water. The

women and the children had to wait for hours to collect a pitcher of water for drinking

purpose only. In the slums there is no proper sanitation system. Most of the slums have some

community toilets but these basic latrines are concrete rings set in the ground without any

water or flushing facilities and drain into an open gutter, which in turn is linked to a nearby

pond. This inefficient system of sanitation makes the areas unhealthy and they reek of with

garbage and human waste. People of slums usually need to wait long to use the toilets each

morning and if they cannot make it on time, they defecate in the gutters outside their homes.

The city did not assign anyone the responsibility of cleaning or maintaining these toilets of

slums (Bangladesh). For this the sanitation condition is getting worse rapidly. To solve this
 Shafiq 5

problem the government tries to remove the slums without providing those people some place

of living.

Then traffic jam is a serious problem. The transportation system of Dhaka is

predominantly road based (Karim). The intolerable traffic congestion of Dhaka city has

become an everyday certainty and a nightmare for the city dwellers. Traffic jam poses severe

threat to economy as well as to the environment. Economic wastage (lose of money)

occasioned by traffic congestion is nearly one hundred million. Since Dhaka city has large

share of the total vehicles of the whole country, we can say that most of these jamming occurs

in Dhaka. And now, everyday the number of vehicles is increasing and the wastage is

becoming definitely higher. On the other hand the roads are not increasing.

Now a days, there is a water crisis in every season in Dhaka city. As dry season gets

closer, water crisis increases. The demand of water for more than one crore people in Dhaka

city is about more than two hundred crore liters a day. But Dhaka WASA can produce around

one-sixty crore liters per day. It means that the shortage is more than fifty crore liters per day.

Every year during dry season water crisis takes a terrible turn in Dhaka city for different

reasons such as electric supply shortage, frequent power outage, low voltage of power and

extreme fall in ground water level.

Then power crisis or the load shedding or the insufficient supply of gas is a day-to-

day phenomenon to the city dwellers of Dhaka. Residents of different areas under DESA

system have to face power outage for several hours in two or three spells. The effect of load

shedding is very adverse. City life becomes stand still. At present the demand for electricity

in the areas under the jurisdiction of the Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA) is about

1,150 mw daily. But, according to official sources, the consumers are getting only 1,100 to

1,120 mw. The daily short fall of 30 to 50 mw is distributed among different zones of the

DESA through load shedding and low voltage power supply (Ahad). This rapid disturbance
 Shafiq 6

in power supply is not only for power shortage, but also due to technical faults in the

transmission and the distribution system which making the city life miserable. Again, the

amount of gas is not sufficient, which is now being produced at the existing gas fields across

the country against the demand.

Again I have to say that the government is decorating our city with cosmetic products.

On the other hand they fail to properly regulate the citys cleaning system. There are open

dustbins and accumulated garbage in the middle of the roads of Dhaka city even after the

beautification program has been completed. The Dhaka City Corporation has failed to remove

those as the city cleaning business has a shortage of cleaners. The DCC cannot collect the full

amount of the tons of waste. There are shortage of funds and cannot employ more workers.

Drainage or sewerage system are to help the city to avoid any situation like water logging by

draining out the excess water in case of overflow or nonstop raining. But whenever there is

heavy rain, the whole Dhaka city flooded, as the drainage system is not capable of draining

out quickly the aggregated rainwater. It is true that being the citizens of a poor,

underdeveloped country like Bangladesh we cannot expect a perfect city but we expect a

hassle free city life that can provide the dire need of a smooth drainage system. There have

been lots of discussions, hypothetical analyses, planning, strategy making and many other

things done by the different government but so far nothing has been resulted to turn the citys

sewerage system into an effective one.

Now the governments acknowledgement regarding these problems is not satisfactory.

The Mayor-elect of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), Sadek Hossain Khoka, said that he

would resort to all possible ways and means to ensure adequate civic amenities and solve the

problems faced by the city-dwellers (Ahad). Every time the government is saying that the

solution is coming. But reality is, we see some awkward working, then again the problems.

The government does not want to take the whole responsibility of solving the problems.
 Shafiq 7

There is no proper future, long-term plan. In the end, the beautification program is a matter of

joke.

So to have the proper felling, I have done my survey on different kinds of people like

students, housewives, officials etc. according to their age, gender, and living area. They were

from different parts of Dhaka city like Banani, Mohammadpur, Mirpur etc. I tried to make the

sample random but there was limitation of time. So my sample size became very small,

which may not be the actual representative of the population. There were 11 questions in my

survey questionnaire. The answers were dissimilar among different demographic regions.

Pupils aged nineteen to twenty-five filled up most of my questionnaires.

80.00%
69.20%
70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00% 15.40% 15.40%

10.00%

0.00%
Yes No Both are important 0.00%
Indifferent

The above bar graph is representing the answer of Was beautification more important

than solving the more pressing problems? Obviously most of the people (69.2%) answered

No. This is supporting my hypothesis, though there were some persons who thought

differently.

Then the following graph is showing the peoples view about the lifetime of the

beautification program. No one expects that the project will last for more than five years.

Thirty percent people thinks that this would stay for 5 years and nearly fifteen percent
 Shafiq 8

peoples view is one-year time. But the majority (43.8%) supported that it would not have a

lifetime above six months.

50%
45% 43.80%

40%
35%
30.80%
30%
25%
20%
15.40%
15%
10%
5%
0%
0.00%
More than 5 years 1-5 years 1 year Less than 6 months

50.00%
46.20%
45.00%
40.00%
35.00%
30.80%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.40%
15.00%
10.00% 7.70%
5.00%
0.00%
Like it Neutral Do not like it Hate it

Again when I asked them about their feelings towards the beautification program,

then there were surprising responses. Most of the people (46.2%) said that they liked the job.

Some were confused but 7.7% have replied that they hated the beautification job.

Now the survey gives the opinion that those who supported the job beautification at

the first step (think it is helpful to promote the image of Dhaka), most of them was still united

to their opinion even at the end (like the beautification program). This happened because
 Shafiq 9

people did not want to mention beautification as a totally useless job as at least it made the

city to some extent beautiful. Overall most of the individuals supported my hypothesis.

I have taken interview of two government officials. One of them complained about

traffic jam, environment pollution and about the inefficient cleaning system. From the most

of the areas DCC has removed the central dustbins and made the system that cleaners should

go house to house to collect the garbage. However, the cleaners should provide service

without any pay from the local people, but they do not do so. But he thinks that the

government knows about all our problems but not aware. When I asked him about

beautification he said that the project required a lot of money and the road based expenditure

is acceptable. He doubts that the lifetime of this program has ended. The other person said

that DCC took the care of garbage management, street lighting and building infrastructures

and public services. But they are not successful in every aspect. Dhaka city has many serious

problems like lack of roads, inadequate traffic system, poor garbage management and poorly

maintained infrastructure. This beautification was not meant to solve these problems. And

about road-based beautification, his opinion was the project was made to clean the roads used

by SAARC summit, and to make extensive lighting and decoration along the way. This

beautification is temporary and means little to general citizens. And as a host country for

SAARC, Bangladesh should provide necessary security and a festive look to the guests. It

was important to ensure that the scenario like looks can be deceiving doesnt happen.

However, both of them gave the mixed responses about the beautification job that they like

the beautification but the government should not forget about the real problems.

So my survey and interviews have given me the idea that inhabitants of the Dhaka

city really want their city to be beautiful. Though most of them supported my hypothesis but

they did not willing to say that beautification was an illogical job. We want to see our city

beautiful but we cannot bear so many problems. The government should be conscious enough
 Shafiq 10

to promote the image of Dhaka by solving the problems first. If the dwellers become satisfied

with the condition, then no extra effort would be needed to promote the image of the city.

My last word is that Dhaka city needs to be beautiful but before the beautification it is

more important to solve the core problems. Ignoring all the other problems, in order to

promote the image of the city through the beautification is not a good perception. We may

have another research about the future appearance of Dhaka city. The city by the banks of the

Buriganga, the city of mosques, the capital of Bangladesh has to survive the test of time. In

order to achieve that goal, the city needs to grow beautifully through a proper planning.
 Shafiq 11

Works Cited

Ahad, Ghulam. Khoka for metro-govt: People have to pay for better service. 19 December

2005 < http://www.weeklyholiday.net/030502/last.html >.

Alam, Saiful. Road beautification programme on: City wears attractive look. New Age

8 November 2004. 19 December 2005 < http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/exec/

view.cgi/24/13731 >.

Karim, Dr. Md. Masud. Light Rail Transit in Dhaka. 19 December 2005 < http:// www.eng-

consult.com/pub/stararticle.htm >.

Sadique, Mahfuz. Dhakas Facelift: Untamed Beauty. New Age 4 February 2005.

8 November 2005 < http://www.newagebd.com/2005/feb/04/feb04/xtra_cover.html >.

 Shafiq 12

Appendix