Many DCC parks and playgrounds only exist on paper while a number of children's parks do not even have any necessary features for those to be called children's parks. The rest are simply abandoned, according to recent findings.

It is ironic and a pity that the DCC authorities have allocated Tk 8 crore in the budget of 2007-'08 fiscal year for the development of parks when they are not even aware of how many parks and grounds they are supposed to maintain.

According to the DCC information guide, DCC looks after 47 public parks, but its estate department records show that it oversees 41 parks. A recent DCC survey however found 61 parks under its authority!

Chief Estate Officer of DCC, Kamruzzaman Chowdhury, said he was not aware that Rajuk had handed over 42 parks to the DCC for maintenance.

"I have just joined at this position," he said expressing his ignorance over various other queries about parks.

In another survey conducted by Bangladesh Poribesh Andolan (Bapa), Swamibagh Park is in fact a truck stand, Karwan Bazar Children's Park is a kitchen market, Kalyanpur Children's Park is occupied by floating stalls and public toilets. Gulshan Taltala Park -- used to be occupied by a slum for 25 years -- now faces Mahanagar Natyamancha, vagrants and drug addicts as its encroachers.

Drug addicts and transport workers control Siraz-ud-Doula Park. English Road Park has turned into a transport vehicle stand as well as a safe haven for drag addicts and anti-socials. Khilgaon Children's Park does not exist any more and Khilgaon Taltola playground at Chowdhurypara, also known as Pachar Maath, is now in possession of Ansar and VDP.

The main entrance of Nabojug Sharircharcha Park adjacent to Sadarhghat is always found closed. Encroachers and vagabonds loiter in and around the park and cause nuisance. There is a health club inside the park, but its instruments and installations are being rusted without maintenance.

In Motijheel Park, a public toilet and a bus stand is found where drug peddlers roam freely. Nayatola Children's Park in Moghbazar is encroached on to build the local ward commissioner's office and a Wasa water pump. Lalmatia playground is occupied by makeshift vending stalls, shops and various factories. Khilji Road Children's Park in Mohammadpur is has been taken over to be used as a waste dump and car parking for a school adjacent to it.

Neighbourhood businesses have turned the Amligola Balu Maath into a junkyard. Locals alleged that their ward commissioner has been making money by setting up a slum on a portion of the ground. Moreover, the first floor of the health club located on the playground is being used for residential purposes. Half of Shikkatuli Park is encroached on by local influential people.

Interestingly, various government agencies have encroached on most of the parks and playgrounds with public toilets, Dhaka Wasa's water pumps and DCC ward commissioners' offices.

Prof Serajul Islam Choudhury, noted educator and head of a high-level advisory committee on park development and beautification in the city, said the DCC has obviously failed miserably to live up to its expectations in maintaining and conserving the parks and playgrounds.

"It's a deliberate failure that involves corruption," said Prof Choudhury.

Land grabbing has been a common practice since the independence of the country and it also has been a general political attitude to turn public and social properties into private ones illegally, he said.

"What is most crucial is that the capital is already a ruined city without open spaces and parks," said Choudhury, adding, "The situation is going to be disastrous for the city dwellers unless the lost parks are reclaimed and new ones are created."

He stressed on social awareness for the protection of open and green spaces.

Sharif Jamil, member secretary of parks and grounds programme committee of Bapa, said the ward commissioners' offices, public toilets and Wasa water pumps encroaching onto the children's parks is a common phenomenon.

A huge amount of public money is wasted in the name of maintaining these parks and playgrounds whereas various recreational equipment are being destroyed due to lack of maintenance.

According to private housing and land development rules of 2004, the ratio of built-up area and open space has to be 70 and 30 percent. Earlier, it was 60 and 40 percent.

Ideally, a city should have at least 10 to 25 percent open and green spaces, according to experts. As per Dhaka master plan, in 1995, the city's old part had only 5 percent open spaces while the new part had 12 percent.

Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) handed over 42 city public parks to DCC for maintenance in the early '80s.

Among those, there were two such parks in Gulshan -- one in front of shooting federation and the other one near Azad Mosque.

DCC abused its authority in case of both of these parks. It leased out a large chunk of the central park of the area to a private commercial amusement park named Wonderland in 1990 at a token price. In the case of the other park known as Gulshan Taltala (South) Park, DCC allowed a 25-year settlement on the park for its sweepers.

Though the Gulshan South Park was freed from a 25-year long illegal occupancy in October 2005, DCC remained mysteriously dubious on developing greenery on the site.

According to sources, the DCC advisory committee in a meeting on March 12, 2007 decided to revise the development design of the Gulshan Taltala (South) Park. The committee also made a few other recommendations including involving landscape architects in the project.

DCC's zone-9 was tasked with the job, after sitting on the task for almost three months, the zone officer said in the last week of June that DCC should get the job done by its urban planning cell.

Mubasshar Hussain, president of Institute of Architects Bangladesh, said nobody is supposed to occupy or destroy parks and playgrounds for any purposes, says the open space and wetland conservation act of 2000.

"While Rajuk is guilty of handing over the public parks to wrong hands, the DCC should be made liable for not maintaining the parks," Hussain said.

DCC chief town planner and architect M Sirajul Islam, an expert in parks and beautification, said nowhere in the world parks, open spaces, canals and lakes of a city are destroyed in this manner.