Task force gives 2-month time to plug sewage lines
The Inter-ministerial Task Force on rivers has served on the capital’s house owners a two-month ultimatum to stop discharging excreta into
the river and to make their own septic tanks.
At present a large number of house owners link their sewage lines with the storm sewerage system, making the rivers around the capital flow with wastes.
In a bid to make the capital’s rivers pollution free, the taskforce earlier formed a committee to identify the major sources of the ongoing pollution.
“We have set a two-month time period to stop discharge of sewage into the rivers. Following this, the authorities will take action against those house owners,” said
Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan after the meeting at his ministry’s auditorium yesterday.
The taskforce also decided to take stern action against those industries which were yet to set up any effluent treatment plant (ETP) or had left their ETPs
dysfunctional after installation, said the minister.
At the meeting, officials of the districts around the capital presented reports on the installation of boundary pillars. They said out of 5,041 pillars in Narayanganj
only 322 pillars were left to be pitched while in Dhaka, only 3,273 were installed out of 6,584.
The district administration of Gazipur informed the meeting that it had completed the pillar installation work while the Munshiganj authorities said there were only 17
pillars left out of 604 pillars designated.
However, green campaigners present at the meeting said the way the pillars had been set up was nothing but killing those rivers by shrinking them officially.
“If we destroy the rivers in this way, the next generation will not forgive us for such heinous acts,” Architect Iqbal Habib, vice-president of Bangladesh Paribesh
Andolon (BAPA), told the meeting.
Another green campaigner present at the meeting said the district administrations had recorded the rivers’ boundary in a manner as if those were “private property”.
However, the minister said it was very tough to maintain the pillar installation work properly as “the river-line changes due to erosion”.
He said all the allegations and concerns were being addressed accordingly
Courtesy of The Daily Star
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