DHAKA'S NEW LOOK UNDER QUESTION

Last Thursday night I was surprised as-well-as amazed to see the extensive lighting in the city streets. Really Dhaka was looking lovely all the way from Farmgate to Old Airport. The road-dividers, krebs and alleys enroute to the Zia Int'l Airport also had massive facelift and lightings. These were meant for the SAARC Summit and the delegates. Everybody was looking at these beauties in broken heart as they new that the lightings would be put off the next morning as the SAARC was postponed. If I had not seen the lightings I certainly would have missed a lot.


(Picture courtesy the Daily Star)

Targeting the summit, the City Corporation beautification cell took a step last June using both the private sector and government agency resources to revamp the city. 81 private sector companies contributed but they did not forget to advertise their logo.

The drawback of this beautification project is that it had mostly visuals in mind ignoring the comfort of the pedestrians. More criticism here.

I am wondering whether these would be maintained properly to benefit the people of Dhaka for a longer period of time or whether these would wear out in the shortest possible time without proper maintenance. Butification is always welcome but without proper planning and usefulness this may turn out to be a great loss of government money.