Urban experts and city dwellers have alleged that powerful lake grabbers in collusion with a section of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) officials have foiled time and again the attempt to demarcate, develop and conserve the water body.

Chief Engineer of Rajuk Emdadul Islam, who had been project director of Gulshan Lake development during 1997-2001, said that Rajuk first prepared a project proposal in 1997 to re-requisition the 35 acres of derequisitioned land and more land on the eastern bank for driveway, land development, walkway and road construction, beautification, water treatment and study of construction of six bridges on the lake.

The Planning Commission asked the authorities to revise the project at least 10 to 12 times until 2005, he said. The Uttara Lake development component was excluded.

The project proposal was revised again in 2003 splitting the scheme into two components: one for walkway and other for construction of six bridges, said Emdad.

The then prime minister on June 19, 2002, directed the housing and public works and other ministries concerned to immediately remove all illegal structures from in and around the lake to construct walkways and clearly demarcate the water bodies.

The prime minister had also ordered construction of bridges instead of culverts and pipe drainage to ensure natural water flow of the lakes.

The prime minister's directive came following a presentation by the consultant of Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara and Uttara Lake development project on a strategic plan for the conservation and development of the water bodies.

According to sources at Rajuk, all concerned with the task of protecting the lake have been beneficiaries of encroachment on the water body. Naturally, demarcation and conservation have been all along been uncertain.

Many influential quarters have mortgaged land on the bank of the lake and taken high amount of bank loan against the land.

Rajuk has consistently been changing alignment of the lake area to facilitate its trade of housing plots reducing the lake's substantially time and again, said architect Iqbal Habib, who has extensively worked on the Gulshan Lake.

"A good number of lake grabbers, politically powerful, have always had a conflict of interest against the proposed plan to protect the Gulshan-Banani Lake," he said. "As a result, approval of the development project has been postponed and uncertain."

Actually, he said, Rajuk has no specifically defined layout of the lake and lakeside area, and the situation has expedited rampant encroachment on the water body.

Repeated revision by the Planning Commission is indicative that the agency concerned is not technically capable enough to convince the commission about the project, Iqbal said.

"Land grabbers in connivance with Rajuk have grabbed the Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara Lake encroaching beyond its periphery at least in two to three layers. There are many instances that Rajuk once set the fringe of the lake but accommodated new plots in documents each time a lake grabber claimed one beyond the fringe," he said.

Rajuk Chairman KAM Haroon admitted that the Gulshan Lake development project has not been able to progress due to the vested interests of the influential land grabbers.

"We could not implement the project because of pressure from influential quarters," he said. Responding to the point how they would rectify Rajuk's involvement in creating plots within the existing lake area, he said, "We will go as per the alignment delineated in the latest project proposal and the layout certified by the High Court."

"We will remove any obstructions and cancel allotment of plot within the alignment," said the chairman. "This will naturally create complications because it was Rajuk that allotted land and now the same Rajuk is cancelling the allotment."

According to the Rajuk chairman, the present interim government has agreed that the project must be implemented and the project is soon going to be placed at the Project Evaluation Committee of the Planning Commission, Haroon said.

The government has also agreed to allocate money for land acquisition required for the project, he said.

Following filing of a Public Interest Litigation petition by Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association in 1999, the Supreme Court certified a layout map of the Gulshan Lake and directed to maintain it.

A top official of Rajuk's town planning department, seeking anonymity, said Rajuk had created some changes to the layout of the lake because of its existing zigzag condition.

The High Court asked for a freshly drawn updated map of the lake but the town planning department produced a map that super-imposed drawings onto an old map of 1996 with an ulterior motive to legalise hundreds of plots created illegally encroaching on the lake.

Meanwhile, Rajuk undertook construction of walkway along the lake at its own cost.

But it is facing serious obstruction in building the walkway along the lake in properly maintaining the alignment, as outlined in the layout certified by the High Court.

Frequent infringements by land grabbers into the lake are forcing the under-construction pathway to go in an extremely irregular course without a proper configuration.

The under-construction proposed walkway along the lake has evidently lost consistency and aesthetic beauty because of rampant encroachment.

Almost all the plot owners on the lake bank have encroached upon the lake, grabbing land in addition to their original allotment of 5 kathas with each plot owner presently possessing up to 10 to 12 kathas, said sources at Rajuk.

Interestingly enough, it is Rajuk that itself issued allotment of extra land encroaching on the lake on demand from powerful plot owners on different occasions, sources said.

The Rajuk started its second phase of work for walkway under a Tk 5 crore project with its own resources.

The incumbent project director, superintending engineer Raihanul Ferdous said that at the latest the draft project proposal was revised in October 2005, making it a Tk 58-crore project including land acquisition, walkway construction and beautification.

The interim government launched a demolition drive against illegal structures encroaching upon the lake on January 17. It launched removal of land filing in the lake area from April 30.