Although Wasa has had some success in removing encroachment from the canals, no measures have been taken to rejuvenate the lifeless canals to revamp the overall drainage system of the city.

Experts believe that removing encroachments from these canals is only the tip of the iceberg. The 'almost dead' city canals need to be revitalised through comprehensive dredging and excavation to foster smooth flow of water.

"Now that the canals are free from encroachments, it is high time to implement tangible measures to clean up the canals to boost the flow of water," said a high official from Wasa requesting anonymity.

According to a survey conducted by Dhaka district administration and Wasa in 2004, a total of 35 canals exist in the capital city. While 12 of these canals are in a reasonably active state, 20 have virtually died out.

According to Wasa sources, the 12 canals that fell under the eviction drive include the canals in Kalyanpur (Agargaon), Shyamali, Bangla College, Katasur, Begunbari, Segunbagicha, Shahjahanpur, Gulshan-Banani, Ibrahimpur, Khilgaon-Bashabo along with some isolated ones.

Although, the authorities managed to free the canals from makeshift structures and illegal grabbers during the drive, any manner of preservation or refurbishment schemes has been absent. The initial plans of excavating the canals for smoother flow of water along with the construction of walkways and cross drains have been left out.

A huge portion of the canal that stretches from Tongi Diversion Road to Rampura Bridge has been filled up by the authorities while the rest of the canals are virtually littered with rubbish.

The 1-mile long Ghopdakshin canal is completely dead with a number of saw mills standing over the filled up land, while the Segunbagicha canal, Matuwail canal, Shyampur canal and Kadamtala canal are virtually choked with garbage and litter.

Although Wasa officials claimed to have removed around 100 tonnes of garbage from the base of the 6 km long Segunbagicha canal in 2005, sources admitted that a few hundreds of tonnes worth of litter still remain in the canal base.

Around 3 tonnes of garbage was removed from the canal behind Bangladesh Bank earlier this month. However, even a moderate shower is creating filthy waterlogging in the streets, as the authorities are yet to move the recovered garbage from the designated place.

An official source from the Drainage Circle of Wasa said that no form of measures have been taken to fine tune the state of any of these canals in the past. Indifference from the concerned authorities has only allowed corrosion of these canals.

Wasa did their part by constructing box culverts while the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) helped along the situation by filling up the canals, said the source.

According to experts, roughly a billion litres of water is discharged through the means of household and industrial wastes along with rainwater and other sources in the city every day. However, the small number of active water bodies and even smaller number of retention ponds is barely enough to accommodate this amount of water.

"Even if we manage to revamp the canals and ensure the flow of water, we need to guide the water of canals to fall into retention ponds," said a drainage expert from Wasa.

As a solution to the current problem, the official suggested proper preservation of the small number of water bodies that are available in the northeastern region of the city.

"Most of the damage is done as most of the water bodies have been haphazardly filled up. But we need to make sure that the situation does not worsen by preserving the small number of water bodies in the city that can be used as retention ponds," said the official.