DSCC working to improve Dhaka’s place in liveability index: Taposh

Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh on Sunday said that his organization is working to improve Dhaka’s ranking in the Global Liveability Index.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) each year publishes the Global Liveability Index.

Taposh made the remark at an MoU signing ceremony in Dhaka.

Taposh said that Dhaka has moved up four places in the global index, which shows that DSCC’s activities to turn the city into a livable place have proved to be effective.

“DSCC is continuously working to make the city’s situation better, which will result in more improvement in Dhaka’s position in the index,” said Taposh.

Taposh added that the Water Development Board (WDB) has handed over the inactive sluice gates to DSCC.

“We’ll start the maintenance works of these sluice gates from tomorrow. Senior Secretary of the Water Resources Ministry has said that these sluice gates are old-fashioned and can’t be activated. We’ll try our best to turn these sluice gates active,” said Taposh.

Attending the event as chief guest, Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD) Minister Md Tazul Islam said that all the current bridges over Dhaka’s rivers will be demolished and new bridges will be built to make the rivers more navigable.

“The current bridges over various rivers in Dhaka aren’t suitable for navigation. We’ve already marked these bridges and provided directions to demolish them. Traffic pressure in Dhaka city will decrease once river routes are activated,” said Tazul.

Tazul added that the waterlogging problem has improved a lot under DSCC’s various measures this year.

“The two city corporations of Dhaka are conducting many initiatives since receiving the jurisdiction of various canals from Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA). Besides, the two city corporations are also recovering many illegal canals and places in the city. As a result, the waterlogging problem of Dhaka city has improved to a great extent,” Tazul added.

State Minister for Water Resources Zahid Faruk, State Minister for LGRD Swapan Bhattacharjee, Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Atiqul Islam, and Water Resources’ Senior Secretary Ministry Kabir Bin Anwar also spoke at the event.