Bangladesh News

Officials involved in the ongoing government drive for demolishing illegal structures in the Turag river, yesterday expressed an urgent need for excavators to remove the debris, for recovering the river’s encroached upon channel.

Abul Bashar Md Amir Uddin, the on-duty magistrate from Gazipur district administration, who is helping Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) in the drive, told The Daily Star that they need another team, which will work with an excavator and some other modern equipment to remove the debris following demolitions.

The huge volume of debris generated during a demolition must immediately be removed to render the recovered land and the portion of the river unencumbered.

“Whenever the crane or labourers demolish a structure, debris fall into the river or on its shore keeping the land still encumbered,” he added explaining the urgency of an additional team with an excavator.

The demolition team, comprising officials from both Gazipur district administration and BIWTA and about 50 labourers, yesterday pulled down nearly 15 light and heavy illegal constructions consisting of about 60 structures on the banks of the Turag, at Tongi Sarak Bridge, Bazar Launch Ghat, Pagar Mouza, and Rail Bridge areas.

Hundreds of onlookers stood along the riverbanks witnessing the drive to free the Turag of encroachments.

Officials present at the sites said the whole demolition process has been painstaking and time consuming, as they had to mainly depend on manual labour for demolition.

“Large BIWTA tug boats can’t enter the Turag due to a lack of required draft in its channel. Moreover, since there are many low bridges under which those powerful tug boats cannot pass, we are completely dependant on a small tug boat and manual labour,” said Assistant Engineer of BIWTA Shahajadur Rahman, who is supervising the drive.

Another official expressed the urgent need for establishing coordination among the High Court administration, the offices of lawyers of alleged encroachers, and district administrations — for on-the-spot crosschecking of documents including High Court orders produced by alleged encroachers trying to establish that there are legal bars on the eviction drive at some spots.

“Seven structures of Noman Group are encroaching on the river Turag, the executives of the company there produced three stay orders against our drive, and we asked for the actual documents, on the basis of which the learned court issued the stay orders,” said an on-duty official of Gazipur district administration.

“We are trying our best to obtain the documents, so we are able to crosscheck their claim on the alleged encroached upon plots with our own map of government lands, but unfortunately it is proving to be too lengthy a process mainly due to a lack of coordination,” he added.

According to Deputy Director of BIWTA Port Saiful Islam, the authorities allocated 55,000 taka a day, for three days of demolition drive.

“It was thought that three days would be enough to complete the job on the Turag, but we have to continue till tomorrow, which will be the fifth day, hiking up the total cost to 2,75,000 taka,” said Saiful Islam without elaborating.

“I think the local administration should take some responsibilities of cleaning the debris too,” he added.

Local people witnessing the drive said the authorities should also clearly demarcate the areas that belong to the river.

The drive continues today.

DHAKA WASA STARTS CANAL RESTORATION

Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) started unclogging the canals of the capital yesterday to avoid waterlogging in the coming monsoon, and it will soon prepare a master plan for Dhaka’s drainage system, a Wasa press release said.

Wasa will completely restore the canals by 2012, said Managing Director of Wasa Md Shahjahan Ali Molla Khan after inspecting some sites of canal cleaning yesterday.

Shahjahan along with Wasa Board Chairman Golam Mostafa visited Segunbagicha Khal, Begun Bari Khal, Khilgaon-Bashabo Khal, Jirani Khal, and Sutibhola.

Wasa officials said 55 pumps for logged water removal, will be installed in the coming monsoon at Rampura pump station.

Another 20 pumps will be set up at Kamalapur Janapath pump station, the release said.

There are 46 canals in the city, and Wasa is in charge of maintaining 26 of them.