Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has called on city corporation officials and staff to work sincerely to make Dhaka clean, healthy and liveable. “Leave everyone else aside: let us build a healthy environment, a healthy city, for our own children. Come, let us all try together,” he said.
The prime minister made the call at a meeting with officials and staff during a visit on Monday to Nagar Bhaban, the headquarters of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC).
Urging them to keep the city clean with their children’s future in mind, Tarique Rahman said no one wants their child to grow up in a dirty, germ-ridden, unhealthy environment. Children do not stay only around their homes; they go to school, college, playgrounds and other places across the city. So not only one’s own area but the whole city must be kept clean. “Your child will not stay only in your area. They will move around all of Dhaka. So come, let us all try together. If we try, we can do it,” he said.
The prime minister said rubbish and dirt are among Dhaka’s biggest problems. They cannot be solved in a day or seven days, but if everyone tries sincerely, things will gradually change.
“You are directly or indirectly involved in solving this problem,” he told the city corporation’s officials and staff. “It may take time, but if you keep trying, change will come. You must have that confidence. The most important thing is the will.”
Calling on officials to be equally responsible, the head of government said: “Wherever I go, I keep looking at what problems there are, and then I phone the people concerned. If you also look at problems this way and take steps to solve them, change is certainly possible.”
Citing the example of London, the prime minister said many parts of the city also had rubbish in the 1960s and 1970s, but long effort and civic awareness had changed that.
“Many of you may have seen beautiful, clean cities abroad. Coming home, you must have wished our city were like that. But it is no use sitting with that regret. We have to do our own part too,” he said.
Noting that cleanliness in Dhaka had improved somewhat, the prime minister described a recent conversation with the head of a South Korean company that has done business in Bangladesh for a long time. When he asked about changes in Dhaka, the businessman said the city was somewhat cleaner than before.
“He did not say there had been a lot of change. He said it was somewhat better. That means change is possible. If we all try together, we can do better,” the prime minister said.
He said he regularly asks about the state of the city’s roads and waste management. In some places road dividers are being rebuilt, and in others waste transfer stations have improved somewhat. These efforts must continue, he said.
“You may well criticise me. But you must also criticise yourself. You have to think about how properly you are doing your duty and how hard you are trying,” he told the officials and staff.
Earlier, the prime minister visited the emergency operations centre at Nagar Bhaban, where he looked at weather information, US Geological Survey (USGS) earthquake updates, wind speed, flood forecasts and air quality monitoring websites. He asked how this information is monitored and how emergencies are learned about.
He also watched the city’s cleaning work through Facebook Live, and viewed a video about Dhaka South City Corporation’s urban development and other work.
Present were Mir Shahe Alam, state minister for local government, rural development and cooperatives; Abdus Salam, administrator of Dhaka South City Corporation; Shafiqul Islam Khan Milton, administrator of Dhaka North City Corporation; and Shahidul Hasan, senior secretary of the Local Government Division.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report