River demarcation starts by Mar 15

The photo taken yesterday near the second Buriganga Bridge in the city shows the BIWTA carrying out clean-up drive that started Wednesday to remove accumulated garbage from the riverbed. Photo: Shafiqul Alam

The government will start setting up boundary pillars on the riverbanks to demarcate the original area of rivers to stop encroachers in and around the capital by March 15.
The high-powered Taskforce Committee to save the rivers made the decision and instructed the deputy commissioners of Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Munshiganj to execute it in time.
The taskforce headed by the shipping ministry also decided to plant trees on the riverbanks at its fourth meeting held at the shipping ministry auditorium yesterday.
It also decided to restore 13 canals in the capital and asked the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) to provide original maps of the canals.
The meeting formed a committee to protect the rivers from further pollution and encroachment by raising mass awareness.
It is impossible to save the rivers from encroachment and pollution without raising public awareness, said Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan while briefing the reporters after the meeting.
"So we have formed a committee which will work for awareness building," he added.
Asked about the permanent structures still existing inside the rivers, the minister said, "We are also thinking what to do about that. Many have made mosques filling up the rivers. The government is planning to sit with them and work according to the directives of the High Court," Shahjahan added.
"We inherited many problems over the decades. We cannot solve them overnight," said State Minister for Environment and Forest Hasan Mahmud who was present at the meeting.
Lawmakers Sarah Begum Kabari and Sanzida Khanam will be working as the joint conveners of the committee that will look after the awareness building and the BIWTA chairman will be the member secretary.
The taskforce asked the deputy commissioners to start building the pillars on the riverbanks, leases of which had been either cancelled or lifted in a bid to initiate tree plantation.
The meeting also decided to strengthen the current drive to remove garbage from the bed of the Buriganga river.
However, the committee could not decide how they would recycle the garbage the BIWTA is removing from the riverbed of the Buriganga.
"We'll decide about it soon," said State Minister Hasan Mahmud.
The meeting also decided to remove all the earth filled up in the Ramnabad and the Rano Gopaldi river under Golachipa, Patuakhali by the encroachers themselves.
"We came to know about the incident through media and the government probed it. So we have instructed the local administration to take actions against the encroachment," Mahmud said.
The next meeting of the taskforce will be held in Chittagong to take similar action about rivers and canals in the port city, the shipping minister said.
Land Minister Rezaul Karim Hira, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on shipping ministry Nur e Alam Chowdhury, MP, Mostafa Jalal Mahiduddin, MP, Nasim Osman, MP, Sarah Begum Kabari, MP and Sanzida Khanam, MP, Mannan Hawlader, acting secretary, Abdul Malek, chairman, Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA), deputy commissioners of the four districts and others civil society members of the taskforce were also present.