BSS-27 ‘Eviction drive to be strengthened to free illegally occupied riverbank’

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ZCZC

BSS-27

EVICTION-RIVER-BANK

‘Eviction drive to be strengthened to free illegally occupied riverbank’

DHAKA, Mar 23, 2019 (BSS) – Shipping Secretary Md Abdus Samad today said
eviction drives will be strengthened to free illegally occupied riverbanks.

“Alongside planting saplings of trees, boundary walls will be built on the
riverbank for protection of further occupation,” he told a discussion at the
Jatiya Press Club here marking the World Water day, an official release said.

Director General of Department of Shipping Commodore Syed Ariful Islam,
Director of Institute of water and Flood Management Prof Sujit Kumar Bala at
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and former
Director General of Water Resources Planning Organization (WARPO) M Enamul
Haque, among others, addressed the discussion.

Samad said the government would take effective measures to protect rivers
from pollution side by side riverbank grabbing. He laid emphasis on better
coordination among organizations concerned for stopping rampant dumping of
industrial waste in the rivers around Dhaka city.

Other speakers said capital dredging should be carried out in all rivers
of the country to revive the lost waterways by returning navigability. Many
major and small rivers and their tributaries are facing serious navigability
problem as all the rivers got silted and there was no dredging to maintain
navigability, they added.

To maintain the navigability of the rivers, a massive dredging of the
rivers is required on yearly basis, the water experts said.

Describing waterways as the most low cost mode of communication, they said
significant economic development would take place in the country, if the
authorities could restore the lost waterways.

BSS/PR/MMR/ARS/1946 hrs