Green activists in the city demanded Friday restoration of the original channel of the Buriganga river by setting up boundary pillars as per the CS record., report agencies.
The demand came from a human chain programme organised by Poribesh Bachao Andolon (Poba), an environmental organisation, at Jatiya Press Club in the morning.
Poba chairman Abu Naser Khan, its executive general secretary Engr Abdus Sobhan, joint general secretaries Syed Monwar Hossain and Aslam Khan, Green Mind Society president Amir Hasan, BCHRD executive director Mahbub Haque and Bangladesh Peace Movement president Prof Kamal Ataur Rahman, among others, spoke at the programme.
The environmental activists said although the Buriganga river plays an important role in the country's economy, the original channel of the river is fast disappearing from the city' s map due to illegal occupation and unchecked pollution.
Poba chairman Abu Naser Khan said the authorities had conducted drives on various occasions to demolish the illegal structures from Buriganga, but these eviction drives could not restore the orginal channel of the river.
He mentioned that on June 25, 2009, the High Court (HC) ordered the authorities concerned to identify by November 30 of that year the original channels of the rivers around the capital city as per the CS record.
But, no effective steps have yet been taken to implement the HC order except conducting few half-hearted eviction drives against the grabbers, the Poba chairman alleged.
The green activists also demanded cancellation of the leases of Buriganga lands, eviction of illegal structures on the bank of the river, and setting up effluent treatment plants to check pollution of the river.
The environmentalists also presented a charter of demands including setting up a permanent pillar as per the CS record by demarking the old channel of the river Buriganga.
FEJB Chairman Quamrul Islam Chowdhury pointed out that in 1960, the estimated amount of water body and low land in the capital was respectively 2952 and 13,528 hectares while it has reduced to 2104 and 12,718 hectares in 1988.
In 2008, the estimated amount of water body and low land declined to 1991 and 6415 hectares.
The water body and the low land of the Dhaka city have been reduced to 32.50 and 52.50 per cent respectively between the period from 1960 and 2008, said the environmentalists at the function.
