Save Basia river
Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) has issued a legal notice to the authorities concerned to save the river Basia -- which flows through Sylhet and Sunamganj -- from encroachment.
Supreme Court lawyer Sayed Ahmed Kabir on Monday served the notice on 14 government officials -- including secretaries to the ministries of land, fisheries and livestock, environment and forest and water resources -- and Bishwanath upazila chairman.
The notice says the 56km river -- enlisted by Water Development Board -- has turned to a “narrow canal”.
The legal notice asked the officials to update the list of grabbers, implement the suggestions made by National River Protection Commission and report to the association on actions in seven days.
Advocate Shah Shaheda Akter, Bela’s Sylhet divisional coordinator, said, “The river played an important role in communication and irrigation system even 20 years ago but now it has become a narrow canal.”
On July 19, 2017, the commission, in a report, listed 187 illegal grabbers and recommended several steps to save the waterbody.
Those include demarcation of the river, publishing of the list of its illegal grabbers and evicting them, removal of an illegal small bridge connecting to the main bridge over the river in Bishwanath, re-excavation of the river, and a stop to garbage dumping in it.
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