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Saturday 20 November 2010

Rajuk's new projects fall under flood zone

Rajuks' Purbachal New Town and Jhilmil Residential projects fall under the designated 'flood flow' zone, according to the Detailed Area Plan.

"Both projects are situated in the flood flow zone and if developed, these will worsen living condition in Dhaka," Khandaker Ansar Hossain, a DAP consultant told bdnews24.com.

This plan aims to regulate Dhaka metropolitan's real estate development covering around 590 square miles. The area plan marks different zones of Dhaka and identifies the areas designated for different uses, for instance, real estate development, roads, parks and water bodies.

It stretches to the northern part of Gazipur municipality in the north, bank of the Dhaleshwari River to the south, Shitalakhya River and Tarabo municipality to the east and a larger part of Keraniganj.

"Water from the high lands of Madhupur and Dhaka flows through these areas and land development will seriously aggravate water logging problem in the city," Hossain said.

Rajuk, Dhaka's real estate regulator, has been engaged in unplanned real-estate development, blamed the urban planner.

THE PROJECTS

Proposed "Purbachal New Town Project" is under Rupganj of Narayanganj with an area of 6150 acres (1 acre = 100 decimals), divided into 30 sectors. Development work is going on in 4500 acres and plot allocation has already started from 2009.

On the other hand, Jhilmil Project will be developed on 381 acres and the second phase will include 1,150 acres. It will be located along the Dhaka-Mawa Highway in Shubhadda, Chunkatia and Tegharia Mouja's low-land areas of Keraniganj.

"Both the projects will block water flow during the rainy season as these are on the flood flow zones," Hossain told bdnews24.com.

"The low-lying areas (like Badda) of the city will be worst effected as rain water will be trapped in this areas," the urban planner added.

However, Rajuk officials told bdnews24.com that these projects were planned years before the DAP and Dhaka Structure Plan (1995-2015) was developed.

"All these government projects were planned in the 80's and were under development since then, these cannot be reversed instantly," Jahurul Hoque, director planning of Rajuk told bdnews24.com.

"DAP and Dhaka Structure Plan was made after the inception of the projects," Jahurul added.

But the urban planner begs to differ and stressed on the need for stopping development in the areas.

"Still there is time to stop developing these areas; in the Jhilmil Residential Project only earth-filling has been done Rajuk can stop it now," said Hossain.

"It has to be done if we want to save Dhaka."

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