Parliament on Monday passed the Environment Court Bill 2010 seeking provisions for allowing citizens to file cases against polluters and for setting up at least one environment court in each district.
The bill stipulates a maximum punishment of five years of imprisonment or Taka 5 lakh in fine or both for a person guilty of polluting the environment.
The state minister for land, Mustafizur Rahman Fizar, on behalf of the state minister for environment and forests, moved the bill in the house against the backdrop of widespread pollution of air and water across the country.
The bill proposed a provision for establishment of an environment court in each district headquarters.
It also proposed a provision for allowing any aggrieved person to sue a polluter and demand compensation.
The new bill proposed another provision for empowering the director general of the Department of Environment to dispose of any case, even if it was pending with an environment court, through mediation between the plaintiff and the accused.
According to the existing Environment Court Act 2000, an aggrieved person has to apply to the Department of Environment to seek redress for pollution, and no court can take cognisance of any offence of pollution without a report submitted by an inspector in writing. It stipulates setting up of environment courts in the divisional headquarters with joint district judges. Only four courts have so far been established in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Sylhet.
The state minister for land, Mustafizur Rahman Fizar, on behalf of the state minister for environment and forest, also moved the Climate Change Trust Bill 2010, seeking provisions for establishing and operating the Climate Change Trust Fund for devising and implementing plans to enable the people living in vulnerable areas to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change by providing funds and development of necessary technology.
Bangladesh created the Climate Change Trust Fund to take measures to tackle the adverse impacts of climate change on the lives and livelihoods of its people and property. The government allocated a total fund of Taka 1,400 crore, Taka 700 crore in FY 2009-10 and Taka 700 crore in FY 2010-11, to the fund.
The house also passed the Expatriate Welfare Bank Bill, 2010 seeking provisions for establishing a bank to give loan without security deposit to persons going abroad for job, to create scope of investment for expatriates on their return home and for quick sending of remittance.
The information minister, Abul Kalam Azad, moved the bill on behalf of the finance minister in the house.
The house turned down by voice vote the proposals of independent member Fazlul Azim for amending several provisions of the bill and sending it for public opinion.
The government placed the Environment Court Bill 2010 and the Climate Change Trust Bill 2010 in the house on September 20 and the Expatriate Welfare Bank Bill, 2010 on September 22.
