Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor Sayeed Khokon yesterday expressed frustration over the lack of commitment to coordinated efforts among utility service-providing bodies.

Speaking at a press conference at Nagar Bhaban to give an overview of his three-year tenure, he said it is very important to bring all utility service-providing organisations under an umbrella to achieve better coordination and solve bureaucratic problems.

“According to a gazette notification from the Prime Minister's Office, chiefs of all utility-providing bodies must attend coordination meetings called by the mayor, implement the decisions taken at the meetings and inform the mayor about it,” Sayeed Khokon.

“But except a handful, other heads of the bodies or even their deputies do not come to the meetings. They send representatives who do not take part in discussion or can make decisions,” he said. “We have written to the PM's principal secretary informing him of the matter, and sought necessary steps.”

On another note, the mayor announced that DSCC will begin an inspection drive in households under its jurisdiction to find out larva of Aedes mosquito, which is the carrier of Dengue and Chikungunya viruses.

“Monitoring teams of each ward comprising its officials and volunteers will be formed, who will go to different houses to find out mosquito larva and their breeding grounds,” Sayeed Khokon said.

Khokon said their teams will destroy the larva if they find mosquito breeding grounds in a house and will make the residents aware about it. He said city dwellers had to face sudden attack of Chikungunya virus last year which spread rapidly, adding that will not let Chikungunya or Dengue virus spread this year by any means.

About the capital's waterlogging problem, Khokon said they have already reduced the decades-old waterlogging problem of Shantinagar and Nazimuddin Road.

Urging city dwellers to do rooftop gardening or in their yard to make the city green, the mayor said they are giving 10 percent holding tax rebate to house owners who have their own gardens.

About the city's billboards, he said they removed around 2,200 illegal billboards and around 30,000 illegal banners and festoons for the city's beautification.

Confessing his failure to make the waste bins sustainable, the mayor said they had set up 5,700 waste bins in different places of DSCC areas, but many of those were broken or stolen by drug addicts or city dwellers to use as flower tubs or containers.

“We are trying to replace the waste bins so that city dwellers can dump their light waste into them,” he said.

Mayor Khokon said in his three years in office, DSCC has also taken different initiatives including modernising the city's 31 parks and playgrounds, setting up LED street lights, repairing roads and drains, installing modern public toilets, setting up digital LED billboards and modernising community centres.