HC gives govt one year for the job
The High Court yesterday directed the government to seal off all the sewage outlets into the Buriganga River within next year.
In response to a writ petition, the HC also directed the authorities concerned to stop dumping waste into the river and declared their inaction in preventing water pollution illegal. The authorities are also to clean up the river and move all the sources of pollution from there.
A rights organisation filed the petition May last year based on a report published in The Daily Star on April 25 the same year under the headline “Untreated waste dumped into Buriganga”.
The HC bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore directed the chairman of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) to take steps to seal off the waste outlets and submit a compliance report to it every month.
The director general of Department of Environment, director (port and traffic) of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and officers in charge of Kotwali, Hazaribagh, Lalbagh, Kamrangirchar and Demra police stations will have to take measures to stop waste disposal into the river.
The BIWTA chairman is also to submit a compliance report to the HC bench every month.
The court asked the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) to immediately start cleaning the riverbanks and not to dump anymore waste into or by the river. DCC will also set up signboards and placards along the Buriganga and arrange awareness programmes every month.
The HC bench castigated the negligence and indolence of BIWTA in taking effective measures to protect the river from pollution.
It said appropriate actions will be taken against the authorities concerned if they fail to comply with the court directives.
Petitioner’s counsel Manzill Murshed told The Daily Star that the authorities have to set up sufficient waste treatment plants to keep up with the increasing volume of sewage and industrial waste.
Asaduzzaman Siddiki, secretary of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, had filed the writ petition on May 4, 2010 seeking immediate steps to prevent water pollution in the Buriganga.
An HC bench on the same day issued a rule upon authorities concerned to explain why they should not be directed to seal off the sewage outlets into the Buriganga and why their “inaction” to stop polluting the river should not be declared illegal.
During the hearing on the rule yesterday, Manzill told the court that a disaster is not far away if measures to improve the city’s sewerage management are not taken. Millions of people depend on the Buriganga River for supply of water. But hundreds of tonnes of untreated waste including chemical effluents from Hazaribagh tanneries are dumped here every day.
He argued that the level of pollution has been so alarming that the water of the river has lost its colour and quality posing serious health threat.
Mafizur Rahman yesterday appeared in the court for BIWTA while Tofailur Rahman for DCC.
-With The Daily Star input
