Rivers officially made thinner

Faulty demarcation encourages encroachers; ministerial recommendations for pillar relocation ignored
The rivers of Dhaka are destined to remain narrow as the shipping ministry has expressed its inability to fully rectify the faulty demarcation of the streams despite a High Court order and subsequent ministerial decision.
An extensive visit revealed that relevant district administrations and officials of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) had demarcated the Turag, Balu and Buriganga rivers, leaving out the foreshores at many places.
As a result, land grabbers

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Students take part in Buriganga clean-up campaign

Around 200 students of different private universities have taken an initiative to set a good example about how to keep the capital’s water bodies clean.
They spent around three hours on Friday cleaning the Buriganga river near Buriganga Second Bridge in Keraniganj with fishing nets from boats.
Though the volunteering students could collect a very little amount of waste from the river, they tried to show how everyone can take part in activities to keep the water bodies of the country clean and free from pollution and

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Sewage goes straight into Buriganga

Wasa disowns 70pc of total sewage in Dhaka
A year after the High Court directed Dhaka Wasa to seal off sewage outlets into the Buriganga, Wasa says 70 percent of the capital’s sewage is illegally dumped into the Buriganga.
Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) said it had no sewage lines of its own that go into the river directly and that its sewage lines go to Pagla Sewage Treatment Plant and the plant dumps the water into the river after treating the sewage.
Taqsem A Khan, managing director of Dhaka Wasa, told The Daily Star that

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Monsoon brings life to Buriganga

Fishermen reappear as river swells with rainwater
It is monsoon and the fishermen of Basila are all smiles. After nine months, they are back in business, fishing in the rain-fed Buriganga.
But the joy of fishing will soon be gone for Ratan Rajbangshi, who was born and raised in a fisherman’s family. And that will be because when the monsoon ends, the Buriganga will shrink and stink again. The fishes will be gone. From October till June, the Buriganga will remain highly contaminated, thanks to the tannery wastes being dumped into the water for decades

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Action against offending house owners ordered

Sewerage disposal into drains
Action against offending house owners ordered
The government on Wednesday asked the authorities concerned to take action against the house owners who dispose of their sewerage into the storm sewers, ultimately
polluting the rivers around the capital.
The task force responsible for ensuring the navigability and natural flow of the

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Buriganga in its death throes

Waste continues to be dumped into the River Buriganga despite a June 2011 High Court order which prohibited the dumping of waste in the river or on its banks as well as ordering the sealing of sewerage outlets and industrial wastes lines within a year.
The High Court directed the chairman of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority to take steps to seal off the waste outlets and asked the Dhaka City Corporation to immediately start cleaning the riverbanks to stop dumping any more waste into or by the river

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Buriganga in peril

Faulty demarcation flouting HC order creates scope for grabbing the river’s foreshore
The government itself now seems poised to make the Buriganga a leaner stream by squeezing its shorelines in violation of a High Court order.
Earlier, in April last year, the Turag river suffered a similar fate as Gazipur district administration demarcated it by excluding the foreshores.
Dhaka district administration and Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) started demarcation of the Buriganga and part of the Turag and Balu rivers from Keraniganj in December last as per cadastral survey

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Pollution of rivers around Dhaka

Increasing threats to life
Mohammad Tareq Hasan
With a population of over 15 million Dhaka is one of the most congested cities of the world. This rapidly growing city is located on the northern bank of the river Buriganga and surrounded by other rivers, namely, the Turag to the west, the Tongi Khal to the north and the Balu to the east. The rivers surrounding Dhaka are an advantage to it and essential for the survival of the mega city as these provide drainage system, drinking water, different kinds of fishes and also waterways for traveling. However, being the capital of Bangladesh

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Buriganga freed of 6 grabbers

Inland waterways and district administration authorities stopped earth-filling and removed boundary walls built by some encroachers on the river Buriganga at the city’s Mohammadpur yesterday.
Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) along with Dhaka district administration conducted the drive along around 700 metre embankment of the river in Ramchandrapur mouja as

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Result close to ZERO

Court Directives, Govt Warnings, Public Outcry
Result close to ZERO
Pinaki Roy
Encroachment and pollution of the Buriganga, Shitalakhya, Turag and Balu rivers in and around the capital continue despite the government’s pledges to put an end to those.
In response to a campaign by the media, the government in June 2009 pledged to restore water flow in the rivers, stop pollution and encroachment, and recover the grabbed land.
In May-June that year The Daily Star ran two series of reports on encroachment and pollution of the four rivers–the lifeline for the densely

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Maiden arrests over Buriganga grabbing

3 fined, sued by DoE
The Department of Environment (DoE) in a special drive yesterday realised Tk 3.21 lakh in fines from three river grabbers, filed cases and arrested two of them for filling up the Buriganga at three points.
This was the first time river grabbers were arrested.
The arrestees are Haji Mahbubur Rahman and Bilal. The other grabber — Saleha Begum–was

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