Waterlogging almost halts Chaktai-Khatunganj businesses as projects yet to bear any fruit
Continual rain for the last few days has inundated the roads in Chattogram, bringing wholesale businesses in the Chaktai-Khatunganj area almost to a halt.
Md Sekandar Hossain, a spice wholesaler in Khatunganj, yesterday told The Business Standard, "There are no buyers in the market due to the rising water level. Our sales are down by at least 80%."
Another wholesaler, Azizul Haque, told TBS, "People are confined to their homes due to waterlogging. So, sales in retail stores are low. Consequently, our customers – retail sellers – are not coming to the market either.
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"If necessary, a couple of buyers are transporting small quantities of goods together in a truck. The number of buyers coming to the market from areas outside the city is also low."
However, the warehouses or shops in the Chaktai-Khatunganj, the biggest wholesale market in the country, did not suffer any losses as the traders took precautionary measures before the persistent rainfall began last week.
Ujjal Kanti Pal, assistant meteorologist at the meteorological office in Chattogram, told TBS, "It has been raining in Chattogram since last Tuesday due to the monsoon, which is causing more rainfall in the city than in the coastal areas.
"Around 65 mm of rain has been recorded at the Patenga weather station in the 24 hours since 3pm Saturday. At the same time, 77mm of rainfall was recorded at Ambagan station in the city. In the 24 hours before that, Patenga received 42.8 mm of rain, and the city received 125 mm of rain."
Projects continue while waterlogging persists
Three organisations have been implementing at least four projects involving Tk15,000 crore in Chattogram for the last eight years, but yet the city gets flooded after a short spell of rain, frustrating its residents.
Fifty-seven canals carry water from Chattogram city into the Bay of Bengal, the Karnaphuli River and the Halda River. The authorities are reclaiming, excavating, constructing walls and installing regulators to control tides in 36 of these canals.
The Chattogram Development Authority is implementing two of these projects, while the Water Development Board is implementing one. The Chattogram City Corporation is handling one project.
People involved in the projects said those were not effective due to a lack of co-ordination, lack of proper feasibility study, procrastination, design changes and slow implementation.
"Re-excavation, expansion, renovation and development of canals in Chattogram City to alleviate waterlogging", a Chattogram Development Authority project involving Tk9,526 crore, is scheduled to end in December this year. The project to reclaim 36 canals, and construct 176km of retaining walls, 45 bridges, drains and footpaths has progressed almost 80%.
The Chattogram Development Authority is also constructing an embankment from Kalurghat Bridge to Chaktai canal alongside the Karnaphuli River at a cost of Tk2,746 crore. The project, scheduled to end in June 2024, has made progress of around 70%.
The Water Development Board's project, involving Tk1,620 crore, to reduce flood and waterlogging in Chattogram has progressed only around 30% in four years. Under the project, regulators are to be installed at the mouths of 23 canals, and a 19-km-long flood barrier is to be set up on the banks of the Karnaphuli.
The Chattogram City Corporation's project to dig a canal from the Baroipara area to the Karnaphuli River at a cost of Tk1,362 crore has not been completed even in nine years. The project was extended to June 2024, but only around 50% of it has been completed.
Chattogram Development Authority chairman Zahirul Alam Dubash said at a press conference on 2 May that there will not be much waterlogging in Chattogram this year. But the city could not withstand the rains of the last few days.
Delwar Majumder, former president of the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB), Chattogram Centre, told TBS, "Since these projects were launched, authorities concerned tell people every year that there will be no flooding next year. But the city is inundated every year. That is why people do not trust them now. I do not trust them either."
