Removal likely within Jan

With less than two and a half months remaining before the cabinet's deadline to clear the capital's residential areas of illegal and commercial establishments expires, Housing and Public Works Minister Mosharraf Hossain yesterday said they would take till January next year if needed.

The ministry has so far identified 1,626 illegal structures in Gulshan, Baridhara, Uttara, Dhanmondi, Lalbagh and Mirpur and sent notices to owners of 269 of the structures.

The cabinet had decided on the six-month timeframe on April 4, seeking to shift the establishments to designated areas. It said non-compliance would result in gas, water and electricity supplies being cut off and cancellation of trade licences.

“We had taken a decision to go slow earlier on humanitarian grounds but now decided to speed up our drive,” Mosharraf told a meeting of the ministry's departments at its conference room in Bangladesh Secretariat.

He said they aimed to complete the task in the next three months and, if needed, take another three. Educational institutions, clinics and hospitals would be granted more time to move than others, he said.

Mosharraf said they already demolished 333 ramps for encroaching on public space and cleared unauthorised establishments from 236 designated parking spaces of buildings in Uttara, Gulshan, Baridhara and Dhanmondi.  He said the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan's diplomatic zone, which faced a militant attack on July 1, was illegal and they would take steps against it.

At a recent press conference in his ministry, Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain urged owners of government-allotted plots in residential areas to remove illegal structures within the cabinet-set timeframe, warning that a drive would be launched otherwise.