IN A complete disregard for citizens’ opinions and their need for green open space, the city authorities continue to deny access to public parks in the city. The case of Shaheed Anwara Park, named after the first woman martyr of the 1969 Mass Uprising, speaks about the authorities’ lack of regard for public demand for green, open space. The park, in one of the busiest spots in Dhaka, was temporarily handed over to the Dhaka Mass Transit Company in 2016 for its handover to the Dhaka North City Corporation for restoration after the project work. In October 2023, both Dhaka’s north mayor and the home minister promised citizens that they would protect the park. Now, the state-owned Dhaka Mass Transit Company considers building a station plaza there instead. The park is still used to keep construction materials and the destruction of the greenery during the construction is visible. In this context, green activists on May 18 held protests and demanded that the government should take steps to immediately remove structure from the park and begin the restoration process.
The Panthakunja park in Dhaka has faced the same fate. It has remained closed to the public for about five years as the Dhaka South City Corporation has failed to complete the modernisation project. The city authority in July 2016 decided to modernise Panthakunja with a plaza, a kiosk for food stalls, two children’s zones, an area for physical exercise and walkways. In October 2018, the project was discontinued over a dispute between the city authorities and the Bangladesh Bridge Authority. Deviating from its initial plan, supposed to go around the periphery of the capital, the Bridge Authority wanted to install pillars for an elevated expressway and its station inside the park, which the city authorities opposed. The coordination failure between the two agencies made the city authorities to suspend renovation work, revise the design and renegotiate with the construction company. A number of other city parks have remained inaccessible to the public for years. In January 2019, the city authorities closed Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy Shishu Park for modernisation and renovation. The park has remained closed since then. Osmani Udyan has been inaccessible to the public because of delays in renovation work since 2017. In this context, it will not be mistaken to suggest that the city authorities and the government’s much publicised plan to make Dhaka green is rather rhetorical.
In the name of development, hindering public access to open space is not acceptable. The government must, therefore, expedite renovation work and ensure an unhindered public access to parks and playgrounds. It must seriously consider the public demand for the restoration of Shaheed Anwara Park and immediately abandon the plan to build a plaza there.