Move to make city waterlogging-free
Chittagong City Corporation dredges canals in the port city. The photo was taken from Dhupirpul in the city on Monday. Photo: Zobaer Hossain Sikder
Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) is now carrying out widening and dredging works of the canals to keep the city free from waterlogging during the rainy season. After success in combating the waterlogging in the port city during the last two years, the city corporation engaged around 100 contractors at 41 wards in November last year to complete the work before the upcoming rainy season, said Chief Engineer Abul Hasnat. He said they are using 10 sophisticated excavators along with around 1,000 labourers for the areas where excavators cannot go due to lack of road communications. The works of Tk 5 crore from the city corporation fund will continue until the rainy season and all the canals in the city will be dredged and widened gradually, Hasnat said. "We expect further success in combating waterlogging this year that we achieved in the last two years," he said. Sources at the CCC said all the canals will be dredged up to 10 to 15 feet depth and 25 to 50 feet width to ease the flow of rainwater. The CCC has achieved 90 percent success in the previous two years after dredging and widening the canals. They, however, some new canals and sluice gates on the mouth of the big canals are needed to remove the waterlogging permanently, they said. The rainwater finds its way to the river Karnaphuli and Bay of Bengal through 144 canals from different parts of the city. Due to solid wastage and lack of concrete bed, the silted canals obstruct flow of the water during heavy rain, resulting in serious waterlogging at the low-lying areas including Shulokbahar, Murad Pur, Bakolia, Agrabad CDA and Khatungonj areas. The canals which will be dredged and widened included Chaktai canal, Chaktai Diversion canal, Hizra Khal, Bamunshahi Khal, Shital Jharna, Moheshkhal, Tripura Khal, Chashma Khal, Boro Nala, Mirza Khal, Birza Khal, Nasir Khal, Kazir Khal, Gohonar Chhara and Chatteshwary Khal. Sources in the CCC alleged that the soil dug up during piling by the developers for highrise buildings has emerged as the major contributor to filling up the canals. Besides, some residents of the city throw solid waste directly on the canals, causing siltation at the canal mouth and waterlogging in the low-lying areas. CCC Executive Engineer Abu Saleh said they are filling the low-lying areas with the extracted soils from the canals so that water can easily pass through during the heavy rain. He said some dishonest people are encroaching on the walkways on both the sides of the canals, which were recovered from the occupants earlier. He emphasised the need for constructing walkways on both the banks of the large canals to save it from the encroachers and help move the excavators.
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