Speakers at a seminar on Thursday said big projects and construction of infrastructure do not mean development, if development is not sustainable due to destruction of forests, rivers and environment.
Calling this type of development as man-made disasters, they said the poor people will be affected most in such a case.
Their observations came at the seminar on 'Man-made disasters: hills, coasts, Rohingya crisis and forests'.
Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD) organised the event at the CBCB auditorium in the city.
In his speech, chief guest economist Wahiduddin Mahmud said Rohingya crisis is one of the major humanitarian ones in the world.
But the fact is the incident of taking refuge by such a large number of people in a country within such a short period is the biggest one. This will soon become an environment-destroying incident, he added.
"We are constructing Rampal power plant for development. Those who say this plant is not harmful to the environment are giving a wrong message," said Mr Wahiduddin Mahmud.
He said studies are conducted on impact on the environment before undertaking any big project. But criticism about Rampal power plant proves that those studies were not done properly.
He called upon the authority not to undertake any project from geopolitical consideration, rather importance should be given to conservation of the environment.
The economist said Indian Tata group wanted to invest in some sectors including steel mill. The economic intelligence unit of the government gave responsibility to conduct research on that investment where it was found the investment plan was wrong.
Although Tata officials were in talks, ultimately they withdrew the investment. The managing director of Tata group later admitted what a big mistake they were going to commit through that investment. But now it seems no one has learnt any lesson from that incident, he added.
Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) executive chairman Hossain Zillur Rahman said the popular notion is that development has taken place through construction of the roads in the haors.
"We should think afresh about what we do by constructing Rampal power plant and cultivating prawns destroying Chakaria Sundarbans," he said.
He also urged the authority to think about what GDP growth has been achieved in real sense through destruction of environment-forests and water bodies.
Mr Hossain Zillur said three types of regime in three development decades always ignored the opinions of the people. In a democratic country like Bangladesh, citizens get punished if they raise their voice although development is being done in the name of the people.
Economist Anu Muhammad said idealism for development of both Myanmar and Bangladesh is same. The same states like China, India, the US and Russia are behind their development.
The result is: Hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas are fleeing to Bangladesh to save life due to the development in Myanmar, he said.
The internally-displaced people in Bangladesh will be no less than the Rohingyas due to the projects like Rampal, Rooppur and Matarbari, he added.
SEHD executive director Philip Gain presented the keynote paper of the seminar.
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