65 bodies to beautify, maintain city road medians and islands

Of them, 48 are private organisations that include banks, insurance companies, NGOs, advertising firms, business groups, developers, news media and hospitals. The rest 17 are government organisations.

They will beautify the road medians and islands as per the given design and species of flower trees and ensure their proper maintenance for the period.

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According to a deadline given by the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), the organisations will complete their beautification work by planting flower trees on the medians and islands along the 67 main roads in the city before December 16.

This was disclosed at a meeting of Dhaka City Beautification Cell at the DCC auditorium yesterday.

The beautification cell was formed in view of the upcoming 13th SAARC Summit in Dhaka on January next.

Presided over by DCC Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka, the meeting was attended by representatives of different private organisations and government utility service organisations to discuss the beautification issue.

Sadeque Hossain said it was found in the past that many things are not maintained properly after their construction. So a decision was taken to give the maintenance responsibility to private organisations, he added.

The mayor said an award by the prime minister will be given for best maintenance.

Representatives of some organisations drew the attentions of the DCC authorities to the installation of commercial billboards and unplanned tree plantation on the medians and islands creating obstacles to beautification works.

In reply, Sadeque Hossain assured them that, if necessary, those billboards will be removed from the medians and all cooperation will be provided to them in this respect.

Dhaka Transport Coordination Board Executive Director Quamrul Islam Siddiqui said the organisations will be allowed to install a particular size of signboard on their respective areas mentioning their names.

DCC Chief Executive Officer-cum-Convenor of the Beautification Cell Habibur Rahman and DCC Chief Conservancy Officer and Member-Secretary of the cell Commander Sohel Farouquie also spoke at the meeting.

All the road medians and islands have been developed by Dhaka Urban Transport Project through the DCC and the Roads and Highways Department (RHD).

The World Bank is financing the project.