Losing forest to housing

With the capital city's population reaching some 15million people, the need to expand its area has been a priority area for Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha's (Rajuk). In line with this, the body has undertaken a number of housing projects including Jhilmil and Purbachal. Unfortunately, the Purbachal housing project has run into hot water. From what has been reported in the press, the Purbachal housing project in the district of Gazipur will decimate around 1,300 acres of forest. This is particularly damning in the backdrop of a Department of Environment report published in 2010 that went invariably against the ongoing Purbachal project stating that land being acquired is thick with vegetation, particularly with Shorea robusta, also known as úâl tree. In fact, according to a land study by Rajuk itself found nearly 43 per cent of the area to be covered by forest and nearly 40 per cent by cultivable land.
Apart from deforestation, the area under consideration is home to some ten thousand people who by occupation are farmers and fishermen whose livelihoods come under direct threat as they are uprooted from their homes and means to earning that revolve around úâl tree, fruit orchards, bamboo groves, sandal and rain trees disappear in the face of city expansion. Yet the project continues in defiance of Dhaka Area Plan (DAP) approved by the Cabinet in July, 2010, but which remains stalled in the face of opposition from land developers and real estate interests. Perhaps in line with this, the housing and public works ministry informed the Prime Minister's Office in September 2010 that there is no forest or arable land in the acquired area.
While we fully agree that the capital city needs to be expanded to make it livable, such expansion must be in accordance with DAP, for the master plan has incorporated in it significant recommendations to make Dhaka livable. Unless the government makes the DAP public, housing projects, both public and private will continue to mushroom following the pattern of indiscriminate filling up of low lands, grabbing of agricultural lands and water bodies in the name of city improvement and expansion.