The government has offered separate plots to worship centres in an effort to relocate them from grabbed river shores, Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan has said.
Khan made the announcement on Wednesday during the 36th meeting of a team tasked with preventing river pollution and increasing navigability.
Leaders of mosques and other places of worship agreed to shift if they were provided with lands, he told reporters after the meeting at the secretariat, reports bdnews24.com
“Different mosques, madrasas, temples and tombs have been built on riverside lands. Our officers have talked to imams and other officials.”
“All of them are of the same view that they need a new location. If we give them plots, they will shift the structures,” said Khan, head of the river protection taskforce.
The deputy commissioners have been ordered to allot government lands to the religious leaders, he added.
The taskforce has set up 9,477 border pillars by the rivers surrounding Dhaka. Half of them are being re-examined in the face of objections. The objections over 20 percent of them have been resolved already, according to Khan.
The taskforce launched a river survey to set up border pillars along all waterways, he said.
Influential land grabbers often impede raids by government officials, Khan said.
“We will resolve these disputes and won’t budge. We have decided that we will define the river boundaries and remove the illegal structures.”
“We will punish those who have damaged border pillars. The lands which have been recovered will be preserved,” Khan said.
The ministry has constructed 20km long walkways by the rivers surrounding Dhaka and the construction of 150km walkways is ongoing, Khan told reporters.
“Once 280km walkways are constructed around the four rivers surrounding Dhaka, no-one will be able to fill them up again.”
Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority or BIWTA and the Water Supply and Sewerage Authority or WASA have been ordered to keep a watch on the lands which have been recovered.
“Factories which are located on the banks of rivers do not use effluent treatment plants. They operate them only when inspection teams from the Department of Environment are around and turn them off soon again after the officers leave,” he said.
“Rivers are getting polluted to a great extent. The director general of the DoE has been ordered to take tough actions,” the shipping minister said.
“We have asked district-level officers to make a list of factories that are polluting the rivers. We will penalise them once the list reaches us.”
“Rivers are being polluted by tannery waste. I would request the Ministry of Industries to look into the matter and take necessary steps.”
If necessary, the shipping ministry will appoint consultants to prevent tanneries from polluting rivers, he said.
Water Resources Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud and Land Minister Shamsur Rahman Sherif were present at the meeting.