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Wetland Filling

HC 'no' ignored

Tawfique Ali
Rajuk has apparently failed to stop developers of illegal private housing schemes from destroying wetlands and floodplains around the capital despite a High Court order issued to this effect around two years ago.
A powerful political clique has been lobbying hard for the real estate developers to ensure the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha does not act against the housing projects declared illegal by the HC, according to sources.
Instead of taking actions against the schemes in question, the government has recently approved four such projects and is set to approve two more, added the sources.
These projects were developed over the past decade without permission and by
SEE PAGE 19 COL 2 FROM PAGE 1 destroying wetlands and rural homesteads in the capital's low-lying areas.
Recent visits to the sites revealed over a hundred illegal housing projects in and around the capital, particularly on the eastern fringe, in a thriving state.
Violating conservation laws, massive land filling continues at the sites, destroying open wetlands and age-old canals to turn them into housing plots.
Such unauthorised projects are being developed also on the plains of the Buriganga, Turag and Balu along the Dhaka-Mawa highway in Keraniganj, Dhaka-Sylhet highway, around Kanchan Bridge and in Rupganj of Narayanganj.
On July 27, 2010, the HC ordered Rajuk and police to take steps to stop earth filling, sale of plots in unauthorised private housing projects and advertisements on them.
The court in January last year issued a similar order but that too was not carried out.
Rajuk, the public agency responsible for coordinating urban development in Dhaka, has pulled down only a few billboards of unauthorised projects.
Meanwhile, most frontline newspapers and television channels continue to carry flashy commercials of such schemes though the HC on December 7 last year categorically banned advertisements of unauthorised projects in the mass media.
Following the ban, Rajuk wrote to newspapers and TV stations, requesting them not to carry commercials of illegal housingprojects.
Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela), said the media houses that carry advertisements of unauthorised housing schemes virtually facilitate illegal businesses.
"It is a clear violation of the High Court order and it deceives buyers with the false impression that the developers placing the ads despite a court ban are authentic," she added.
According to the real estate management law, it is a punishable offence to advertise and sell plots of illegal
schemes.
The HC in June last year declared 77 private housing projects illegal and directed the authorities once again to halt the activities of those projects.
However, fresh unauthorised ventures keep coming up every other day with mere new names.
The authorities concerned are doing little to stop illegal housing schemes despite repeated warnings from town planners and environmentalists that these are destroying thousands of acres of wetlands, water bodies, river foreshores, flood-flow zones and rural homesteads.
Referring to the illegal housing sprawl, Prof Sarwar Jahan, who teaches urban and regional planning at Buet, says it is a wanton destruction of the natural ecosystem, warning of an impending disaster in the overall environment and liveability of Dhaka city.
Rajuk Chairman Nurul Huda said the body could not do much against the illegal housing schemes due to manpower shortage.
An HC bench in December last year stayed Rajuk's mobile court drives against illegal housing schemes following a petition by Nasrul Hamid Bipu, a ruling party lawmaker and president of Real Estate & Housing Association of Bangladesh.
The stay was vacated in the first week of March this year.
Bela chief Rizwana said Rajuk itself could obtain orders from regular courts to stay the illegal activities by developers.
Asked why Rajuk did not file cases with regular courts, the Rajuk chairman said it usually took much time to have a case disposed of at regular courts. Developers take advantage of prolonged trial to continue their activities, he observed.
Queried as to why eviction drives were not conducted after the stay orders were vacated, he said the three mobile courts of Rajuk were engaged in other day-to-day jobs and that they would go for eviction after the end of Ramadan.
However, the drives have yet to begin.