Crores down the Drain, Yet No Respite for City Dwellers

We find it deeply concerning that 49mm of rainfall recorded by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) between midnight and 9am on Sunday was enough to submerge major parts of the capital and paralyse daily life. Dhaka South City Corporation, meanwhile, pointed to emergency teams clearing clogged drains. Clearing drains only after streets flood, however, does nothing to address underlying structural weaknesses. After years of heavy investment in drainage projects, why does the capital remain so vulnerable to a single morning of rain? The recurrence of the same disruption year after year makes this failure even harder to justify.

The situation was both maddening and familiar. Key areas such as Motijheel, Arambagh, Paltan, Malibagh and New Market turned into mini-canals, stranding commuters and bringing traffic to a standstill. Near Notre Dame College, students waded through knee-deep water. Concurrently, patients and their families struggled through flooded streets just to reach Dhaka Medical College Hospital. When rain routinely blocks access to major schools, markets and national hospitals, failures in urban planning and drainage directly threaten public safety. For a city that continues to expand, leaving these weaknesses unresolved only increases the risks for its growing population.

These disruptions also carry a severe economic cost. Commuters lose working hours while paying inflated rickshaw fares. Small traders rush to save merchandise from water damage, and daily wage earners lose vital income. Businesses suffer as major commercial corridors become impassable. Thus, what appears to be a seasonal nuisance quickly becomes an unfair financial burden on citizens who bear no responsibility for these failures. The cumulative losses may remain less visible than the flooded streets, but they affect households and businesses every time the city fails to drain rainwater efficiently.

Therefore, city authorities must move beyond reactive emergency pumping. Dhaka urgently needs a coordinated drainage strategy based on accurate mapping of canals, drains and natural retention areas. Encroached canals must be recovered, illegal structures removed, and waste disposal rules strictly enforced. More importantly, officials must conduct a transparent audit of major drainage projects to determine how much was spent and why promised results were never delivered. Without accountability, future spending will simply reproduce past failures. The findings should be made public so that residents can see where funds went and which agencies are responsible for delivering results.

Against this backdrop, administrators must not be caught unprepared by the next downpour. With the BMD forecasting further rain and thundershowers across Dhaka in the days ahead, emergency pumps, drainage crews and traffic management teams must be deployed before vulnerable areas go under water. At the same time, long-term accountability must replace recurring explanations. Dhaka residents deserve a capital where an ordinary downpour does not derail livelihoods or obstruct emergency care. Moreover, public money must produce working infrastructure - and that benefit should be visible the moment the next rain arrives.