Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), who took office on May 17, 2020, will complete four years of his five-year tenure in a few days. Speaking with Partha Pratim Bhattacharjee and Dipan Nandy of  The Daily Star, the DSCC mayor talks about his achievements as well as failures, the challenges he faced, and his visions for the future.

You have completed four years of mayorship—80 percent of your tenure. Could you talk about your achievements and failures in these four years?

Let the people be the judge of my success and failure after my tenure is complete. I will not claim to have fulfilled 80 percent of the promises that I made in my election manifesto during these four years. But I must say, I have been able to do many things that I did not think I could. Discipline has been brought everywhere. The first thing I focused on was ensuring good governance at the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), and I did it.

Irregularities became normal at the DSCC—the obligation to follow due process, laws and rules was absent here. Many were not discharging their responsibilities. I made changes to improve the situation. Now, I can claim that DSCC is the most corruption-free organisation among all the government institutions and organisations. We see the reflection of it in our revenue collection drive. 

After assuming office on May 16, 2020, I started my journey from May 17. In that fiscal year, we collected a revenue of Tk 512 crore. In the following three fiscal years, we collected Tk 720 crore, Tk 879 crore, and Tk 1,031 crore of revenue, respectively. We generated this revenue without increasing the holding tax. The DSCC that once had to struggle to pay salaries of its employees has now become self-dependent.

Many of our resources were grabbed by various quarters; we were able to recover those resources after establishing good governance. We have freed 54 acres of land worth Tk 4,800 crore. DSCC was being deprived of its own resources due to long-standing corruption and negligence. DSCC's wealth belongs to its residents.

After carrying out many administrative reforms, the enthusiasm for work is back in the DSCC now. Before, there was no framework of waste management or any scheduled working hours for cleaners. Those who neglected their work were fired and replaced. When I took charge, there were 24 secondary transfer stations (STS) in 22 wards; now there are STS in 65 wards.