Eviction drive set to resume this month
Overcoming legal hurdles on the much-awaited eviction drive along the Ichhamati river, running through Pabna town, the district administration is set to resume the drive on March 31.
The extensive drive that started on December 23 last year stumbled after illegal occupants of the river's land filed eight lawsuits, seeking legal bar on the eviction.
Kabir Mahmud, the deputy commissioner (DC) of Pabna, said, "We've faced and won all the eight cases. Now there's no legal constraint on the freeing of the river."
The drive will be based on the cadastral survey (CS) records, completed in the British era, and after scrutinising the records, the administration already identified around 1,200 structures that are illegally encroaching on the river's land along the nine-kilometre stretch of the river within Pabna municipality area.
Following the eviction drive, the river's water flow will be revived through dredging. Its banks will be widened to a minimum of 30 metres and be demarcated with paved walkways, the DC said, adding that the entire process will be implemented under the Water Development Board (WDB).
WDB Assistant Director in Pabna Mosharraf Hossain said they issued a Tk 3-core work order to an engineering firm for conducting the eviction drive and also for constructing paved walkways along the banks of the river, between Banglabazar and Sardarpara points along the nine kilometres stretch of the river in Pabna town.
The process of selecting a qualified bidder in another tender, estimated at Tk 6 core, for dredging the same length of the river is currently underway and the work order for it might be issued by March 31, he also said.
About 38 kilometres of the 84-km-long Ichhamati river -- originating from the Padma at Shibrampur of Pabna and ending after falling on the Jamuna in Bera upazila -- has turned almost non-existent due to encroachment and unabated pollution.
According to the CS records, the total area belonging to the river running through Pabna town had 88.58 acres of land. In the Bangladesh Survey (BS) records map drawn in 2013, the area was found to have diminished to only 54.53 acres.
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