Demonstrations were held in the Barisal city on Thursday demanding cancellation of the project to set up 1,320 megawatt coal-based power plant at Rampal in Bagerhut and ship-breaking industry at Patharghata coast in Barguna. Samajtantrik Chhatra Front and Bijnan Mancha Andolan jointly organised the programme that started with a protest procession from Amrita Lal Dey College and ended in a human chain in front of Ashwini Kumar Hall.
The programmes were presided over by Riazul Huq Khan, joint convener of Bijnan Mancha Andolan, and addressed among others by Engineer Imran Habib Rumman, Manisha Chakraborty, Prodipta Saha, Badruddoza Soikat, Bidhuvushan Nath, leaders of the organisations.
The speakers said the proposed power plant at Rampal under a joint venture of Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited, is only nine kilometres from Sundarban.
The Patharghta coast is also near the Sundarban and both the projects would create a huge loss of arable land in the areas and affect the Sundarbans, the world heritage and world’s largest mangrove forest and the coastal belt of the southern regions, they said.
The construction of the coal-fired thermal power plant at Rampal has been moved when India is trying to protect the Sundarbans forest on its side, they said.
They alleged that after setting up costly rental and quick rental power plants, the government has been resorting to costly ways to resolve the country’s power crisis instead of utilising the least-cost options.
The power plant project and ship-breaking industries would destroy the ingredients of the soil that support the lives of millions of inhabitants of a large region, increase the proportion of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in the air, they said.
-With New Age input
