Dying Dhakakhal gets a new life. But can it live on?

It is a few minutes before 6pm. Fifty-nine-year-old Shahid Ullah stands on the paved walkway along the banks of Dholaikhal.

For nearly 30 years, he rarely came this way. There was little reason to. The canal behind his house had long been choked with garbage and turned into a foul-smelling drain. The stench and swarms of mosquitoes made it difficult even to go near the water.

"You couldn't sit here for two minutes. The smell alone would drive people away," said Shahid Ullah, gesturing toward the walkway beneath his feet.

Now a group of teenagers sits by the bank, chatting. The canal that people once avoided has become a place where residents come to walk, sit and spend their evenings.

Four centuries of a waterway

Dholaikhal, originally known as 'Dolai Khal', was excavated between 1608 and 1610 during the tenure of Islam Khan, the first Subedar of Dhaka. It was dug to strengthen the city's defences, improve internal water communication and help address waterlogging.

Large boats once travelled through the canal, making it one of the important waterways of Old Dhaka. Ten bridges were built across it during the Mughal era.

From the Sultanate era through the British and Pakistan periods, up until the first decade of Bangladesh's independence, Dholaikhal remained a popular medium of communication between Dhaka and the rest of the country and the outside world. Its defensive significance was also notable — the waterway was used to quickly mobilise Mughal troops to suppress the rebellious Baro-Bhuiyans of Bengal, and even to transport necessary equipment from Delhi to Dhaka.

"I heard from my father that the main reason this canal was dug was for communication and to deal with waterlogging. Back then this canal was very large; now only a part of it remains," said Shahid Ullah.

The canal once ran from Babubazar through Zindabahar, Goalnagar, Nawabpur and Narinda before merging with the Buriganga near Loharpul. Large cargo boats once used the waterway to move through the city.

In the latter half of the 19th century, settlements began to spring up along both banks of Dolaikhal. During the dry season, soil was cut from the canal banks to build houses, and garbage gradually began accumulating in the canal. Over time, encroachment and siltation caused the canal to lose its natural form.

The memory still lingers among locals of a time when boats plied the canal into the 1990s, and boat races involving 52 boatmen were held on Independence Day.

How Dholaikhal disappeared

Dholaikhal was once a green-fringed canal that flowed through Farashganj, Gendaria, Nawabpur, and Narinda before merging with the Buriganga under Loharpul. Boat races, festivals, and fairs were held around the canal, forming part of the river-centred life and culture of Old Dhaka.

At the start of the 20th century, two opposing views emerged about the canal's future. In 1909, engineers of the time advised the government to close off nearly 12 miles of waterway comprising Dholaikhal and its branches. But in 1917, Dhaka's administrator Patrick Geddes again urged that its navigability be increased. Amid this back-and-forth, the canal's navigability and width kept gradually shrinking, though Dholaikhal more or less retained its glory until 1940.

Even in the 1950s, Dholaikhal remained a popular place for swimming, boat races, festivals and fairs.

From the 1960s onward, however, Dholaikhal began to disappear under a combination of encroachment, land filling and declining navigability.

It was renovated around 1964 at a cost of about Tk25,000, but the intervention did little to reverse its decline.

In 1965, on the orders of Pakistani President Ayub Khan, Dolai Khal was filled in for the first time — and with that, the history of this dear old companion of Dhaka came to an end.

In 1970, the then DIT (now RAJUK) took up a plan to fill in the canal, and after independence, that process was completed in 1973.

Today, a road has been built over the canal, and countless shops and buildings dealing in machine parts and repairs have sprung up on both sides. Now only the name "Dholaikhal" survives.

"I've been hearing for years now that work will be done on the canal, that this and that will happen. But no work has actually been done — the canal has only gotten smaller," said Shahid Ullah.

In 1867, a toll was imposed on vessels travelling through this canal — proof of its commercial importance at the time. In 1872, the responsibility for collecting that toll fell to the Dhaka Municipality.

From 1867 to 1871, the canal generated an average of about Tk13,000 a year in toll revenue. Around the 1870s, the old tollhouse at Trimohini was removed, and three new tollhouses were set up at Dayaganj and Babubazar.

In 1987, three box culverts were built over the canal under a World Bank project, by which time its width had already narrowed considerably.

Even into the early 1990s, people used to travel by boat from the ghat beside the Raisaheb Bazar mosque.

The Dholaikhal reservoir covers an area of 16.061 bigha, of which about 14 bigha will remain as the reservoir.

According to maps, Dholaikhal originally had two sections — one about 5 kilometres long, the other about 2 kilometres.

Talha Hossain said, "30-40 years ago, we couldn't live here because of the mosquito menace. The water was very bad; it smelled like sewage water, and we couldn't stay near that water."

On paper, the canal's width exceeds 100 feet, but only about a 30-foot stretch survives in any form. The water in that stretch, too, is polluted and foul-smelling. At least 50 shops have been built where the canal was filled in.

"I heard from my father that the main reason this canal was dug was for communication and to deal with waterlogging. Back then this canal was very large; now only a part of it remains." Shahid Ullah, Local resident

From lifeline to garbage drain

For decades, Dholaikhal survived more as a name than as a functioning waterway. Unchecked dumping, encroachment, inadequate drainage and the absence of regular maintenance gradually turned parts of the historic canal into a garbage-filled drain.

Household waste and polythene were dumped directly into the canal banks and the surrounding drains. Oil, chemicals, and metal waste from small local factories and motor-parts shops also flowed into this water. With both banks of the canal encroached upon and no regular cleaning, the water's natural flow was blocked, leaving waste to pile up in place. There was also no effective, regular waste-removal system for the area.

Rafiq Ali, 44, a local motor-parts trader, said dumping workshop waste into the canal had become routine. "Once work was done, everything — burnt engine oil, grease, iron shavings or chemicals — from the workshops would just be poured into the canal. There was no dustbin or place to dump the waste, so everyone simply assumed it was normal."

This still, foul-smelling water became an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. Because the water wasn't flowing and garbage and polythene piled up all around, mosquitoes multiplied rapidly here. Because dirty drain water couldn't easily drain away and silt kept accumulating, permanent waterlogging formed in different parts of the canal.

Shilpi, 48, recalls keeping the doors and windows shut even during the day to keep out the mosquitoes and the smell. "Even at night, two mosquito coils and a thick mosquito net brought no peace. We were always afraid the children would fall sick or get dengue. That was the biggest suffering of living in Old Dhaka."

Over time, countless shops — dealing in machine parts, automobile parts, and small workshops — have sprung up on land encroached from the canal. Where boats once sailed and boat races were once held, only a name now survives — "Dholaikhal" — a name that lives on more vividly in the memories of elderly locals than it does in reality.

After a major cleanup and redevelopment effort by the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), parts of the old waterway have begun to return as public space.

A canal reborn

For years, Dholaikhal was associated with filth and stench. Now, after a major cleanup and redevelopment effort by the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), parts of the old waterway have begun to return as public space.

This transformation of Dholaikhal is part of a larger plan — the government has approved a project worth about $345 million under DSCC to restore 29 kilometres of canals, and Dholaikhal was one of the first visible results of that effort.

Md Zahirul Islam, chief executive officer of DSCC, said the remaining work, including lighting, plantation and beautification, will be completed by the city corporation using its own funds as soon as possible.

The transformation began in 2021, when DSCC started work to clean the canal and develop walkways, public toilets and an amphitheatre. The initiative was later formalised as the "Greening of Dholaikhal Reservoir and Development of Aesthetic Environment" project, at a cost of about Tk19.88 crore.

The project was scheduled to run from 23 February 2023, to 23 April 2024. It was eventually completed on 31 May 2026 — more than two years after the original deadline.

The work involved clearing long-standing encroachment and accumulated waste, re-excavating the reservoir and developing walkways along its banks — a difficult undertaking in one of Old Dhaka's most densely built-up areas.

The redevelopment covers more than five acres — specifically 5.31 acres, with 4.6 acres designated for the reservoir itself. The project features a 1,968-foot walkway, a 2,155-foot bicycle lane, around 60,000 square feet of greenery, a 2,130-square-foot play area for children, and two amphitheatres with seating capacities of 350 and 150. It also includes a 1,076-square-foot ghat, two public toilets, and kiosks. Additionally, the reservoir is intended to serve as a rainwater-retention facility.

With the new walkways around the reservoir, residents now come here from early morning. Elderly people walk, parents bring their children, and men and women use the space for exercise and leisure. On a Friday afternoon, around two to three hundred people came to see the newly developed site, giving a sense of how quickly the space has entered the neighbourhood's daily life.

"There's no time to go far away in this busy city," said local resident Rumi Akter. "So every day I bring the kids for a short walk here, and it refreshes the mind." Many others like her can be seen coming here to stroll every day — some can even be spotted swimming in the canal's water.

"The environment here now feels like a blessing to us," said 35-year-old local resident Shohel. "Over the last three or four years, as the environment has improved, the mosquito menace has almost disappeared. Once, those same mosquitoes used to steal our sleep at night."

Photo: Mehedi Hasan

The change is most visible in the water quality. Under DSCC's initiative, the drains and sewer lines that are directly discharged into the canal have been completely separated and shut off. As a result, with rainwater collecting and regular cleaning, the canal's water is now considerably clearer than before. It even has plenty of fish now, some of which people are catching, according to this local resident.

Water quality has also changed noticeably. With the sewage discharge routes separated and shut off, and with rainwater collecting, the canal's water is now much cleaner than before — it even has plenty of fish now, some of which people are catching, said Shohel.

Some residents have even begun calling it a "mini Hatirjheel". "If a nice bridge had been built, it would have looked even more beautiful," said Rumi Akter.

But the redevelopment is not complete. The reservoir premises are open from 10am to 6pm, and the lack of lighting means visitors must leave after dark. Residents have called for emergency lighting and a security guard. They also say there are plans for three fountains, a boundary wall and a redesigned ghat, although no clear timeline has been given for those works.

But can it stay that way?

Rebuilding a waterway is easier than keeping it alive.

Dholaikhal's own history is a warning. The canal did not disappear overnight. Decades of dumping, encroachment, blocked drainage and weak maintenance gradually reduced a major waterway to little more than a name.

The new infrastructure may have changed the physical landscape, but its long-term survival will depend on what happens after the construction ends: whether waste continues to be kept out, whether the water is regularly maintained, and whether future encroachment is prevented.

Dholaikhal has returned in a new form. The question now is whether the city can keep it that way.