THE fall of a two-year-old boy into a ditched deep tube-well at Tanore in Rajshahi on December 10 is a reminder of a nationwide menace that the authorities have for long failed to confront. The toddler slipped into an abandoned eight inch wide pipe reportedly left unused for years by a local resident. Fire Service and Civil Defence personnel could not till the evening of December 11 rescue the boy. While the resident should bear responsibility for leaving such a hazard exposed beside a house, the incident cannot be viewed in isolation. Across the country, especially in cities, hundreds of similarly dangerous holes, open drains and manholes, most of them falling under the jurisdiction of various public agencies, remain unprotected, posing constant threats to pedestrians and especially to children. Footpaths in cities are routinely found with broken slabs, missing covers or unguarded openings. The deaths of young Jihad and Ismail a decade ago at Shahjahanpur and Shyampur were grim warnings that should have compelled sustained action. Yet, little has changed. In Chattogram, a 2021 city corporation survey identified 5,527 open drain spots, but the city remains dotted with such death traps. Gazipur, Narayanganj and other urban centres fare no better, reflecting a pervasive failure to maintain basic public infrastructure.
This persistent pattern of danger is not the result of weak oversight but characteristic of an entrenched culture of institutional neglect. Public agencies responsible for urban safety and infrastructure maintenance have repeatedly failed to enforce basic safety standards. The monsoon season worsen such risks as stagnant water masks open drains, potholes and broken footpaths, forcing pedestrians to walk blind through hazardous terrain. Over a dozen people died and many more became injured after falling into such hazards in a decade. The situation is no less troubling outside major cities, where abandoned wells, construction pits and abandoned pipes remain scattered across residential areas without warning signs or protective barriers. Illegal encroachment on footpaths by street vendors and haphazard construction activities exacerbate the risks, shrinking already limited pedestrian space and pushing people towards unsafe edges. That many city corporations still lack updated surveys of their own roads, drains and footpaths, despite repeated accidents and mounting public frustration, tells of indifference at play. The recurrence of such disasters, often involving children, underscores how the authorities have normalised hazards that should never exist in any responsible system of urban or rural governance.
The authorities must, therefore, treat these hazards as threats to life, not maintenance lapses to be ignored until the next tragedy strikes. They should conduct comprehensive surveys, seal open holes and manholes, take punitive measures against irresponsible property owners and rigorously enforce maintenance responsibilities within their jurisdictions.
