Saving Shitalakkhya
3-day drive launched by authorities
A joint team of the district administration and water transport authorities yesterday launched a three-day drive to free the Shitalakkhya river from massive earth-filling at Kanchpur.
However, there is no mechanism in place on how to sustain the action, which came following a report in The Daily Star, as many such similar moves went futile in the past.
Traders of construction materials have encroached on the river and made it almost half in Shimrail mouja in Shiddhirganj near the Kanchpur Bridge.
Officials of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and Narayanganj district administration launched the drive with an excavator, two bulkhead vessels, a number of trucks and around 50 labourers.
The drive is expected to remove earth from an area 200 feet wide and 700 feet long stretching from the BIWTA’s Kanchpur Landing Station towards north in Shimrail mouja.
Asked about their move to stop traders from filling up the river again, Executive Magistrate Md Jahirul Islam who led the drive said it depends on the higher authorities.
The authorities have identified around 60 unauthorised sand traders who have been running their businesses filling up the river in Shimrail, Anti and other moujas.
No trader was seen at the site during the drive, which will continue today and tomorrow.
The authorities conducted similar drives at the site at least ten times since 2006 and removed some of the earth. However, each time the offenders came back and grabbed the river again.
A number of politically blessed local thugs allegedly control the whole affair at the cost of the river.
Members of Rapid Action Battalion and armed and regular police were on hand to maintain law and order.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
