Tannery shifting
Govt extends deadline further
The planning commission has extended by two more years the project implementation time for shifting the hazardous tannery industries outside the capital city as the second deadline set by the High Court ended on August 28.
And the government failed to meet the deadline to shift the tanneries from the city’s residential neighbourhood for the third time since 2003.
The hazardous tanneries, now located at Hazaribagh, a densely populated neighbourhood in the city, are set to be shifted to Savar, about 30 kilometres west of the capital.
The relocation was planned to save the city’s residential neighbourhood as well the river Buriganga, the city’s lifeline, from pollution.
The relocation was to be completed in two years from 2003 to 2005 at an estimated cost of Tk 545-crore.
The project implementation time was first extended for a year in 2005.
In 2009, the High Court gave a directive to complete the relocation by February 28, 2010.
On February 28, a bench of Justice Mohammad Momtajuddin Ahmed and Justice Naima Haider reset the deadline of Feb 28, 2010 for the relocation as the government failed to accomplish the task and sought time.
HC extended the deadline until August 28 and directed the industry ministry to submit compliance report in six months.
Originally set to complete the relocation from 2003 to 2005, the government extended the implementation time by a year until 2006.
In 2006, it extended the implementation time until 2010 and now it has been extended by two more years until 2012.
Each time the implementation time was extended in the face of protests from the green activists who said the government was buying time due to pressure from the tannery owners.
The extension of project implementation time by the planning commission by two years is illegal, Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers’ Association executive director Syeda Rizwana Hasan told New Age.
She described it as a complete violation of the HC order as the government, represented by the planning commission, did it without filing any petition seeking extension to the deadline.
Project officials in the industry ministry said that on July 26, the government approved extension of the project for relocating the tanneries until 2012 as it could not complete many of the project components.
They said that the government could not even start construction of the central effluent treatment plant at Savar, where the tanneries would be relocated.
The industry ministry secretary, Dewan Zakir Hussain, told New Age that the ministry requested the planning commission to extend implementation time of the project without increasing the costs.
He said that the industry ministry submitted a report on the progress of the project to the HC the expiry of the deadline.
Zakir Hussain, who heads the steering committee on tannery relocation, said that the ministry had in February sought two years’ time for the implementation of the relocation.
The High Court, he said, allowed only six months, which expired on August 28.
On June 23, 2009, a bench of Justice ABM Khairul Haque and Justice Momtaz Uddin Ahmed ordered for the closure of all tanneries at Hazaribagh, a densely populated residential neighbourhood in the capital, by February 28, 2010.
Following a public interest litigation writ petition filed by the BELA in 1994, the court had asked the department of environment to ensure compliance with its directive without any exception.
Green activists have been demanding for long for shifting the tanneries which discharge 3,000 tonnes of untreated solid wastes and 2.5 lakh tonnes of liquid wastes each month into the river Buriganga, the lifeline of the capital city.
The Buriganga has been severely polluted due to unabated release of untreated wastes into it by more than 150 tanneries.
Project officials said the tannery owners were opposing a government decision to realise from them Tk 430 crore it would spend to install the central effluent treatment plant at Savar.
It would cost the government an estimated Tk 545.36 crore for relocating the tanneries from Hazaribagh to Savar.
They said that in 2009 the government rejected tannery owners’ demand for compensation for shifting.
Project officials said the construction of the CETP, without which the relocation of the tanneries would be useless, is likely to begin in next year.
They said that the tender process of the CETP is in progress.
Bangladesh Tanners’ Association president Shaheen Ahmed told New Age that the tannery relocation in two years would be difficult, as the government have to settle a number of demands of the tanners before that.
A review meeting last month between the industry minister, Dilip Barua, and the tannery industry owners and leather goods producers failed to break the deadlock, said officials.
