Mayor runner Taposh ‘dreams big’ for Dhaka South City

Fazle Noor Taposh says he has relinquished his role as a third-time MP to run for mayor as he is driven by his passion to develop Dhaka city.

The mayoral candidate for Dhaka South City Corporation or DSCC plans to create a developed capital in line with a developed Bangladesh, the one that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina envisions.

With that goal to reach, Taposh has identified five sectors to work on to ensure the civic rights of the residents of Dhaka.

Mohammed Sayeed Khokon, the son of Awami League leader late Mohammed Hanif, also aspired for the nomination to stand in DSCC mayor election. He failed to get the ticket after being intensely criticised for his failure to curb the mosquito menace that caused outbreak of the fatal dengue fever.

Taposh promises the city corporation will not lack in efforts if he gets elected.

“We want to reach the people with all civic amenities within 90 days of assuming the office, if I’m elected. The DSCC will work for all the people in Dhaka,” he told bdnews24.com in an interview.

FROM MP TO MAYOR HOPEFUL

Fazle Noor Taposh explained during the interview his reasons for contesting in the mayoral election leaving the job of MP.

“The city of Dhaka is not developing at the same pace the country is developing. The people in the city are still deprived of many civic amenities, a fact that troubles me,” he said.

“I believe that we need to work in a bigger arena with a bigger responsibility; where the capital Dhaka will keep pace with the country.”

Being a MP limits the scope to do development work in the city corporation area - which was another factor pushing him to contest in the mayoral election, said Taposh.

“I was elected an MP for the third time. But what I noticed from my second tenure is that we cannot do all the development work in the constituency to fulfil the public demand no matter how hard we try, because it depends on the city corporation in many cases,” he said.   

“Our leader Sheikh Hasina has moved the country forward and made it a developing country from a least developed country within 11 years. She envisions Bangladesh as a developed country by 2041,” said Taposh.

“That developed Bangladesh will need a developed capital which should be our Dhaka city. But we’re yet to have a developed Dhaka.”

FIVE-PHASE DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Taposh shared his five-pronged development plan he has for the DSCC which he said will be included in his election manifesto.

TRADITIONAL DHAKA: “Dhaka is an old city along two rivers. We’ll revive the tradition of Dhaka and bring out its uniqueness, its beauty,” Taposh said while explaining the first part of ‘traditional Dhaka.’

BEAUTIFUL DHAKA: Taposh promises to ensure the civic amenities under the second part of his plan ’Beautiful Dhaka.’

“We’ll go for a green revolution and provide ample place for sports in each ward so that the young generations can play, and women and elderly people can walk. We’ll make Dhaka a beautiful and modern city.”

MOBILE DHAKA: The ruling Awami League aspirant talked about easing the plight of the people and ensuring their mobility in Dhaka by overhauling the public transport system.

“We need to rearrange, coordinate and ensure proper management of the public transport system to provide our people with all the amenities. Be it metro rail, bus service, taxi , rickshaw or even horse cart,” he said about the third segment of his plan styled - ‘mobile Dhaka’.

“Some of the streets will have pedestrians walking on them while some roads will have people travelling in a horse cart. Some roads will have fast-moving vehicles on it while some will have non-motorised, slow vehicles,” said Taposh as he promised to democratise the transport system for the citizens’ convenience.

“There’ll be a coordinated management through which we can make Dhaka a ‘mobile city’ which is an ‘immobile city’ at present.”

GOOD GOVERNANCE: “We’ll make Dhaka South city completely an autonomous organisation free of corruption,” promised Taposh as he shared the fourth part of his development plan.

“We’ll be self-dependent and not accountable to anyone. We’ll be responsible for the development and the people in Dhaka and other organisations working in Dhaka will be accountable to the city corporation.”

DEVELOPED DHAKA:  Taposh mentioned a 30-year ‘grand plan’ for the development of Dhaka South in the fifth part of his plan.

“We’ll design the long-term plan for 30 years and according to our grand plan, any development work will have a 10-year longevity. We’ll ensure the quality in that way,” he said.

During the interview, the ruling party candidate also highlighted a plan to coordinate with agencies other than the city administration for doing development works in Dhaka.

“Other organisations working in Dhaka cannot take up digging or other works, or implement other projects in Dhaka in three years from the day we complete a work,” he said.

“We’ll coordinate with them and keep the places they need free while we will do our work in other places. Once they finish theirs, we’ll do our work. But we won’t allow other organisations to work in the same location in three years once we finish our work,” he elaborated.

“I believe mismanagement has caused a lot of inconvenience for the people depriving them of their citizen rights. We will not tolerate this anymore,” said Taposh.