12 acres of Meghna leased out illegally
The district administration in Munshiganj violated law by leasing out a 12-acre foreshore and floodplains of the Meghna in Char Betagi, said National River Conservation Commission Chairman Muzibur Rahman Howlader.
Fresh onslaught on Meghna
A river under onslaught. An open defiance of a High Court order. And inept river custodians.
Curious foreign trip
A team of soon-to-retire engineers and an administration official are leaving for the US and the UK on a two-week trip ostensibly to learn about digging canals, protecting river banks, restoring embankments, and dredging rivers, which they had been doing for over three decades.
IF RIVERS DIE, SO WILL WE
What was once considered encroachment has become outright murder. But the seriousness of the crime has done little to deter a carnival of corruption plaguing river management.
2009 HC Verdict: What the court directed and what’s been done
The apex court in 2009 directed the government to demarcate the original territory of the four Dhaka rivers -- Buriganga, Turag, Balu Shitalakhya -- restore those rivers to their original state and protect them against grabbing and from pollution.
95pc structures in Rajuk area non-compliant
Over 95 percent of the structures under Rajuk’s jurisdiction were built without building approval, according to survey findings for the ongoing revision of the capital city’s Detailed Area Plan (DAP).
National Building Code: Disregarded all along
Despite tragic loss of lives and properties in repeated building disasters, the country’s national building code has been lying largely unimplemented for 26 years, getting obsolete in the absence of an enforcement authority, said leading professionals.
Authorities’ inaction put rivers in peril
The deplorable conditions of the rivers around Dhaka city and elsewhere in the country due to encroachment and pollution are the result of inaction of the river custodians and their complicity with the grabbers for decades, National River Conservation Commission Chairman Muzibur Rahman Howlader has said.
July 2, 2019
River grabbing a criminal offence
All river grabbing and pollution are criminal offences, the highest court in the country has declared in the full text of a landmark judgment.
May 28, 2019
City traffic in disorder
The metro rail construction work on 8km of the capital’s key thoroughfares has made the chaotic traffic even worse, largely because steps have not been taken for better use of the narrowed down streets, experts and officials said.
May 20, 2019
Meghna grabber defies govt order
A private dockyard company has been building two slipways in the Meghna river in Munshiganj’s Gazaria even after the National River Commission asked the firm to stop its work and free the river.
May 19, 2019
Freeing the Meghna from Grabbers: Act or get sued
The National River Conservation Commission has warned that it would take legal actions against at least a dozen government authorities for their inaction to free the Meghna from grabbers if they do not act within seven days.
May 10, 2019
Ship-builder eating away Meghna
In an onslaught on the Meghna, a private ship-building company is constructing its shipyard’s slipways into the river at Meghnaghat in Sonargaon, but the river custodians are doing little to stop it.
May 5, 2019
All in scary conditions
Building and fire safety conditions in all the 1,818 high rises under Rajuk’s jurisdiction are scary, its chairman Md Abdur Rahman said yesterday.
May 5, 2019
Puzzle of 5 floors
While the 23-storey FR Tower on Kemal Ataturk Avenue has a foundation for 18 storeys, around a dozen other high rises on the same street are taller than permissible height but Rajuk has been silent about this all along, said government high officials.
April 17, 2019
No plan, no coordination
Although Rajuk officials had no engineering plan to knock down the much-talked about BGMEA building on the capital's Begunbari canal, they went to the site yesterday heavily equipped with demolition machinery.
April 8, 2019
FR Tower Building Plan: Rajuk violated own rules to approve it
Violating the then building rules, Rajuk in December 1996 approved an 18-storey high-rise in Banani, where the FR Tower stands today.
April 2, 2019
Planning goes haywire
Rajuk is approving commercial buildings in the residential areas of Gulshan and Banani with virtually no height limits and experts are calling it illegal and a recipe for disaster.
X