Once Dhaka was adorned with several hundreds of ponds. Like canals, only a handful exist now. But they are also in death throes due to negligence of the authorities concerned. The undivided Dhaka City Corporation in its map marked around 65 ponds in its 28 wards out of 90 wards based on a survey carried out between 2003 and 2011. The writer had written a series reports in The Daily Star based on the map in 2017 visiting all the sites identified as a pond. He tried to find out the present condition of the ponds and locations of disappeared ones. He found many of those ponds disappeared or in position to be filled up or death. Surprisingly, he also found many others which were still alive and well maintained. His book OASIS LOST TO URBAN SPRAWL, an in-depth look into Dhaka’s lost ponds is published based on that series report. Reading this book, a person will be able to get a glimpse of the ponds of Dhaka.
