Shut errant tanneries now
A parliamentary body yesterday expressed resentment over the industries ministry's "deliberate delay" in shutting down the tanners inside the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate,which are severely polluting the Dhaleshwari river.
In its meeting at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, the parliamentary standing committee on the environment, forest and climate change ministry asked the ministry to show zero tolerance towards the tanners in question.
On August 23 last year, the body recommended closing the estate because it does not have adequate facilities to treat all liquid and solid waste generated by the tanneries.
According to statistics placed before the standing committee, the estate has the capacity to treat around 25,000 cubic metres of liquid waste every day, but the tanners generate around 40,000 cubic metres of liquid waste.
It means 15,000 cubic metres of liquid waste are dumped into the Dhaleshwari without any treatment, causing severe pollution.
In 2003, the government took an initiative to build the BSCIC Tannery Industrial Estate on 200 acres in Hemayetpur after moving all tanneries from the capital's Hazaribagh to prevent environmental pollution and to protect the Buriganga.
After yesterday's meeting, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, chief of the parliamentary watchdog, told The Daily Star that over six months have passed since they recommended closing down the tanneries that have no effluent treatment plants (ETPs) to treat the solid and liquid waste.
"But whenever the environment ministry asked the industries ministry about the follow-up in shutting down such tanners, the latter made various lame excuses. They said they were holding meetings, appointing consultants to close the errant tanneries," said Saber, also a ruling Awami League lawmaker.
"They [the industries ministry] are deliberately wasting time in shutting down such tanneries, which is not acceptable," he added.
The environment ministry told the parliamentary body that they wrote to the industries ministry last week to close the errant tanneries soon.
In the meeting, the committee also discussed construction of a road in the safari park in Lathitila reserve forest in Moulvibazar 's Juri upazila.
In this regard, Saber said it was decided in the meeting that the forestland would be measured before construction of the road. No roads would be built in the reserve forest, he said.
He added that Environment Minister Shahab Uddin agreed on this.
Meanwhile, the environment minister yesterday told a press conference that the government has taken up a project to construct a safari park in Lathitila reserve forest to save the forestland from encroachment.
"There are empty spaces in the forest and already many families are living in the forest. If we don't establish the safari park, more people will build houses there," he said at the briefing held in the secretariat.
But he refrained from replying to a question about the Local Government Engineering Department's initiative of constructing a road inside the reserve forest after felling trees.
The minister said it is hard to keep the desired forest area in a densely populated country like Bangladesh.
Currently, Bangladesh has around 22.37 percent tree-covered area and around 14.01 percent forest area. The government has set a target to increase the tree-covered area to 25 percent and 16 percent forest area by 2030, said sources at the ministry.
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