Turag filled up ‘MISTAKENLY’

The High Court had directed the government 12 years ago to restore the areas of the Turag and three other rivers around the capital to their original state, but the government still lags far behind in the implementation of the directive.

Even more surprisingly, a government agency has been filling up a part of the Turag in Ashulia, which it claims was done "mistakenly" during the implementation of a development project.

Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA), the custodian of rivers in port areas, completed demarcation of the boundaries of the four rivers only a few months ago.

Visiting the bank of the Turag last week, this correspondent found that Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) is filling up a river area which lies between the northern side of the BIWTA river port and the intersection of the Dhaka-Ashulia road.

A stretch of about 100 yards along the Dhaka-Ashulia road has been filled up by BBA. Locals said the government agency is carrying out the work for nearly a month.

Kazi Wakil Nawaz, director (port and transportation) of BIWTA, said Dhaka-Ashulia expressway project authorities did not take permission from them before filling up the river area.

"Probably they [BBA] are going to apply to us for using the area for their project," he said.

Shahabuddin Khan, project director of Dhaka-Ashulia expressway, said: "Our contractor filled the river land without consulting us. I visited the area yesterday [Sunday] and directed the contractor to stop the work. If we need the land, we will talk to BIWTA before continuing the work again."

He said a Chinese company is working as their contractor. "They [contractor] must have got it wrong and filled up the area."

The project director said the BIWTA did not intend to use the river land.

Another BIWTA official said this river area was grabbed in 2018 and they recovered it that year, excavated the area and set up demarcation pillars.

HC JUDGEMENT

In its judgement delivered on June 24, 2009, the High Court clearly directed the government to demarcate the original territory of the four Dhaka rivers -- Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Shitalakhya -- to restore the river areas to their original state and protect them from pollution and grabbing.

Since then the government, the constitutional trustee of the country's rivers, could not make much progress in this regard.

It took the authorities 12 years only to set up demarcation pillars along the four rivers.

The BIWTA has so far set up nearly 3,200 pillars along the four rivers.

"But more than 1,400 of them were installed at wrong places meaning they made the rivers narrower officially," said Mohammad Azaz, executive director of Rivers and Delta Research Centre (RDRC), the organisation which conducted a survey on installed pillars.

The RDRC published the survey report titled "Report on Field Survey of the Demarcation Pillars Setby BIWTA on Buriganga and Turag rivers" in 2018.

Apart from setting up pillars, the BIWTA is now implementing a project to build walkways along the Turag.

Earlier, the government agency built 22-km walkways along the Buriganga river and Tongi canal in Kanchpur, Shyampur, Dharmaganj, Ramchandrapur and Tongi in phases.

"Constructing walkways along rivers is important. Once they are built, nobody would be able to grab the river land," said a BIWTA official who was involved in demarcation of the Turag area.

The HC in its order had also directed the government to remove earth used to fill up the rivers and realise the cost from the grabbers.

Asked about implementation of the court's orders and directives, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), said the government started work to save the four rivers following the judgement.

"Twelve years is quite a long time, but the government still could not set a precedent that a river has been totally freed from grabbers," she said.