Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Saturday took out 74 tonnes of solid waste from five drainage pits of the Panthapath box culvert on the first day of cleaning drive of canals and box culverts as part of canal recovery.
There are 24 pits in the Panthapath box culvert.
DSCC aims to give relief to the citizens from waterlogging by April this year.
Local government ministry transferred the responsibility of drainage system and canals to two city corporations on December 31 from Dwasa (Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority).
DSCC high officials said that they would seek technical assistance from Dwasa including human resources and machineries.
DSCC Chief Executive Officer ABM Amin Ullah Nuri and Chief Waste Management Officer Air Commodore Badrul Amin visited the site at Panthakunja of Panthapath in the city.
Mr Nuri said that primarily solid waste which has become hard will be cleaned from the culverts at Panthapath, Segunbagicha and canals at Zirani, Manda and Shyampur. After conducting cleaning drive, DSCC will start the demarcation and eviction drive.
"The next course of action will be taken after we see what is there inside the culverts. We want to clean the three canals and two box culverts by March this year so that citizens get rid of waterlogging by April," DSCC CEO added.
Answering to a question, Mr Nuri mentioned that on Saturday DSCC started the work depending on its own capacity. DSCC has limited capacity but Dwasa has been doing the work for long. Dwasa will work for two years to transfer knowledge and skills to build capacity of DSCC.
Air Commodore Badrul Amin stated that the box culvert at the Panthakunja Park has different depths -- 11 feet to 22 feet. The city corporation will get the actual size with the help of the technical committee.
Regarding the illegal structure, Mr Amin said those can be identified only after demarcation of the culvert area.
