3 Bills Passed
Environment courts get more power
Parliament yesterday passed three bills including two for increasing the number of environment courts and their authority to take stern actions against polluters, making provision for establishing a trust to tackle adverse impacts of climate change.
A new bill was also placed in parliament seeking to enact a law to punish illegal sand extraction and to lease sand quarries in an environmentally friendly way.
The House also passed another bill introducing provision for setting up an expatriate welfare bank to provide financial support to country’s unemployed youths who are willing to go abroad for employment, and help Bangladeshi citizens working abroad to send remittance easily.
The bank will also encourage them to invest in Bangladesh and will provide them with employment facilities after their return from abroad.
Information Minister Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of Finance Minister AMA Muhith proposed for passage of the bill, which outlined the detail functions of the bank.
State Minister for Land Mostafizur Rahman on behalf of Hasan Mahmud, state minister for environment and forest, proposed for passage of the two bills to increase punishment for environment pollution and set up the climate change trust.
The new legislation, which was passed repealing the existing Environment Court Act, 2000, aims to expedite trial of environment related offences and offers setting up environment court at every district headquarters with expanded jurisdiction to take stern actions against all sorts of polluters.
According to a provision of the bill, one or more special magistrate’s courts at district level can be set up with the authority to hold trial of environment related offences and issue order to confiscate goods and other materials as punishment.
The Environment Court Act, 2000 allowed the government to form court only at divisional headquarters. According to that law, a person might be jailed for maximum three years or fined Tk 3 lakh for polluting environment.
But the new legislation increased the jail term up to five years and the fine up to Tk 5 lakh.
Both the special magistrate’s court and the environment court will enjoy authority to realise fines from the offenders. Besides, the courts may order to meet expenses for conducting cases and give the money in compensation to the affected individuals or organisations.
After passage of the Climate Change Trust bill, the government will now constitute a 17-member trustee board as soon as possible for tackling adverse impacts of climate change.
The ministers of finance, agriculture, food and disaster management, foreign, women and children affairs, water resources, shipping, health and family welfare, and LGRD, and secretaries of the cabinet division, finance division and the central bank’s governor are, among others, the members of the trustee board to be led by the minister for environment and forest.
According to the legislation, a 12-member technical committee comprised of government officials and climate change experts will be formed to assist the trustee board to perform its functions.
The board will work on climate change adaptation, mitigation, technology transfer, finance and investment and take necessary actions for conducting research.
It will have a “climate change trust fund” which will be consisted of funds received from the government, donor agencies and countries and different sources approved by the government.
The government has already taken various measures including approval of Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2009, and also formed a climate change trust fund to tackle possible adverse impacts of climate change.
Before passage of the two bills on environment, Land Minister Rezaul Karim Hira placed a new bill for introduction of law for proper regulation of sand extraction.
The proposed legislation will empower the government to impose restrictions on sand extraction from some specific areas.
A person might be punished with a maximum two year jail term and a maximum fine of Tk10 lakh for illegal sand extraction, according to a provision of the bill, which was sent to the parliamentary standing committee on land ministry for scrutiny.
It proposed that the land ministry alone will deal with leasing the sand quarries.
Meanwhile, LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam yesterday placed a bill seeking to amend the union parishad law.
The bill aims to drop a provision from it for holding the due polls to union parishad without redrawing boundaries of the wards under a union parishad maintaining population disparity of more or less 10 percent from one ward to another.
The bill was sent to the parliamentary standing committee on the LGRD ministry for scrutiny.
