No implementation of laws to save rivers

Though the govenrment has made strict laws, it could not save the country's rivers from encroachment and pollution as there is no implementation of those laws, said Chairman of National River Conservation Commission Mojibor Rahman Haowlader yesterday.

“Though district adminstrations are responsible to protect rivers from encroachmers, in many cases they have leased out river land to people,” he said at a seimnar organised on the occassion of World Rivers Day held at the auditorium of Bangladesh National Museum.

Haowlader presented a situation report on rivers, where he said there are hundreds of factories, housing projects, power plants, residential hotels and houses built by grabbing riverbanks.

There are High Court directives to the government for demarcating the area of rivers as per cadastral survey (CS) records of land. But in many cases, the administration demarcated the river as per the Revisional Survey (RS) record, which narrowed down the river areas, he said.

Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan, in his address as chief guest, said the government has decided to demarcate banks of rivers flowing around Dhaka again.

“The pillars we used to demarcate the riverbanks were not very strong, and people have taken those out. So we are going to do that again,” said the minister.

He said the government has bought 35 dredgers in last 10 years to conduct capital dredging, and bring back navigability of rivers.

Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam, and secretaries to the ministry of land, ministry of shipping, and ministry of environment, forest and climate change were also present at the programme, alongside representatives of non-government and voluntary organisations working to save rivers.