The negligence and corruption by some officials of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) have led to the unplanned growth of the mega city Dhaka, alleged the city dwellers.
There are widespread allegations that RAJUK gives permission for construction of buildings illegally in exchange of money without considering their future consequences, putting the capital into a deplorable state.
Senior officials of RAJUK, influenced by a group of vested quarters, give permission to construct buildings and other structures in Dhaka violating the building code of the city development agency, they further alleged.
Sources said those who wanted to construct buildings legally they applied to RAJUK for approval of the architectural designs. But, the vested quarter in RAJUK harass them in approving their building plans only to compel them to pay bribe.
A resident of the city complained to The New Nation on Tuesday that without paying bribe it became very difficult for the common people to get their buildings’ architectural design approved by RAJUK.
If anybody gives handsome amount of money as bribe to that vested quarter he or she gets approval of their buildings without facing any hassle, he added.
Sources said RAJUK allows construction of multi-storied buildings without looking into the condition of the utility services like water, gas, sewerage lines and electricity.
“A place wherein one family used to live in the past, now resides there about 35 families and RAJUK did not consider the capacity of the utility services while giving permission for high-rise buildings,” added the sources.
The government asked RAJUK and other concerned authorities to make sure that the utility services are in place before giving any permission in future. But RAJUK never follows any direction of the high government officials.
There are many illegal buildings and structures in the city that were constructed by filling lakes and canals. These illegal land occupiers, somehow, managed approval of their building designs through paying bribes to RAJUK officials.
In the total process, it will need 20 to 25 signatures to get approval, said a city resident.
After passing through a long process RAJUk sends the file to the inspector who will to the field physically and submit a report on it. Depending on his report the chief building instructor and other authorised officers will finally approve it.
Out of the seven members of then building code committee, at least five members will have to approve it.
The present scenario of Dhaka city is that it is now the most densely populated and unplanned city in the world.
Sometime, a RAJUK plot owner transfers his land to another person with the help of this vested quarter and this quarter takes bribe from both of the parties on the plea of solving their problem.
Even after construction of the buildings the vested RAJUK officials visit the building site and pointed out various faults and the building owners had had no alternative but to negotiate with them, sources said, adding almost half of the buildings had some faults for not maintaining the building code.
Meanwhile, the detailed area plan (DAP) for Dhaka city is likely to get stuck again as the authorities concerned are planning to extend the deadline for finalizing it, officials said.
RAJUK has already missed the first finalization dateline of the detailed area plan, generally known as DAP for its negligence.
Meanwhile, the four consultants who have prepared the survey reports on DAP also held the review committee responsible for the delay in finalizing the project.
It is to be noted that DAP covers 1,528 square kilometres of Dhaka Metropolitan city.
In absence of DAP on time the city’ topographic landscape, natural environment, wetlands, flood retention basins, and open spaces have been destroyed, said the urban development planners.
