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CCC seeks funding to take charge of canals in water-logging project


Published : 06 Apr 2022 08:45 PM

 Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) has not agreed to take responsibility for the canals completed under the waterlogging project.  The CCC wants Tk 100 crore from the waterlogging project to meet the maintenance cost of these canals.

 Chattogram City Corporation Mayor M Rezaul Karim Chowdhury said this at a CCC-CDA coordination meeting held at the conference room of the city corporation office on Wednesday.

  CCC mayor said that the responsibility of cleaning the canals lies with the city corporation.  However, huge amount of money is required to clean these canals.  CCC has a project to clean the roads  But there is no allocation for cleaning the canal.

 Now if the maintenance cost of the canals is handed over to the CCC, it will not be right.  CCC is ready to take over the canal if Tk 100 crore is given to CCC from the waterlogging project.  I will be able to take the responsibility of maintenance subject to receiving money from the Ministry.

 Regulators have been installed on 5 canals under this project.  Which is scheduled to launch in June this year.  Despite the demand for manpower from the 34th Construction Brigade of the Army, no organisation has been able to provide it yet.  The CCC mayor wants to give the responsibility of maintenance of these regulators to the water development board in the first year to cut the complications caused by this.  However, the organization did not say what the CCC's plan would be if the Water Development Board did not agree to the proposal.

  Project Director Brigadier General Mohammad Shah Ali said that 22 points have been identified to alleviate the water shortage in Chattogram city through which the water of Chattogram city falls into the river.  Work on 7 canals under our project has been completed.  Work on 11 more canals will be completed in June.  Besides, work on many canals is nearing completion.  But we are not able to finish the land acquisition complexity.

 CDA chairman Zahirul Alam Dobhas said work on the development project was underway.  Although waterlogging has not been completely eliminated this year, next year we will be able to completely eliminate waterlogging.  However, it is not necessary to just dig the canal, if dredging is not done in Karnafhuli, then the benefits of the project will not be matched in any way.

 The coordination meeting were present Chief Engineer of CCC-CDA, Councilors of different wards and journalists.