President of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan (Bapa) Prof Muzaffer Ahmad yesterday demanded recovery of the grabbed river land and formulation of strong guidelines to save the rivers and other water bodies.
Addressing a press conference on the proposed budget at the National Press Club, he said the High Court directives, which were delivered to save the rivers around Dhaka, should be applicable for the rivers across the country.
“The land ministry and environment ministries must take effective measures to save all the rivers and water bodies of the country,” he said.
Prof Muzaffer also demanded that a parliamentary caucus be formed to save not only the haors but also the river basins. He said a caucus involving the lawmakers from Dhaka would help save the rivers around the capital.
The housing sector is developing in the flood flow zones and sub-flood flow zones which are needed to be preserved for retention of water, he said.
Demanding proper steps to stop initiatives to construct the Tipaimukh dam, Muzaffer said the dam would destroy ecology of both Bangladesh and Indian sides and affect the river system of Bangladesh.
On parks and open spaces of the city, he said these should also be freed from the encroachers.
Muzaffer went on to say that the prime minister has announced increasing the total forest to 20 percent from 10 percent and asked whether there is enough space to increase the forest.
“We don’t want social forestation; rather we want recovery of natural forests,” he said.
The proposed budget is not a properly green budget, he said, adding it is relatively green compared to the earlier years when the environment issue was ignored.
Member Secretary of finance, commerce and development programme of Bapa Arifur Rahman said the government for the first time has placed emphasis on environment, agriculture, rural development, food production, energy, climate change and saving rivers, water bodies and Haors.
But this has to be implemented as proposals are one thing and implementation is totally a different one, he observed.
Arifur said the proposed budget has allocated Tk 278 crore for the ministry of environment and forest, which is 11.2 percent higher. But this allocation is not much compared to the volume of the total budget, he added.
Categories: Bangla, Bangladesh, Bangladesh Economy, Bangladesh News, Daily Bangladesh News, Economy, News
