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Unauthorised Housing Projects

Ctg hills in peril

Minhaj Uddin, ctg
Hill cutting goes on unabated at North Pahartali in Chittagong city in the name of unauthorised housing projects.
Two such housing projects named "Shapla Residential Area" and 'Model Palli' had been developed there by razing more than a dozen hills, locals said.
Several more hills were also in the process of being razed, they complained.
While visiting the areas yesterday, this correspondent found the name of "Model Palli" written on various walls in the area.
The locals said that influential quarters had gradually been developing the projects by cutting away the hills at night.
Asked about the two projects, Sarwar Uddin Ahmad, deputy chief town planner of the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA), said: "None of the residential areas has approval from the CDA, which is a prerequisite for development of residential areas in the city."
When contacted by this correspondent in the guise of a land buyer, Badsha Mia, a local land broker, told him that they had been developing the projects to turn them into residential areas, as there were forest and hills even 15 to 20 years ago.
He said: "Various government officials, businessmen, and other influential people buy hills in the area in the names of differ-
ent associations, and appoint local goons as caretakers, who cut the hills at night."
"When the plots are ready, the owners divide the plots among themselves or sell those to others at high prices."
In August 2013, police arrested three men and seized an excavator from "Shapla Residential Area" while the hills were being cut at night. But sources at Akbar Shah Police Station said the main culprits remained untouched.
Zafar Alam, director of the Department of Environment (DoE) in Chittagong, said the department files cases if any such incidents come to its notice.
But the locals cast doubts over the role of law enforcers.
Md Yasin, a resident of Pahartali, said the law enforcers had turned a blind eye to the illegal practice upon receiving bribes.
Several complaints were lodged against "Shapla Residential Area" in 2007 and "Model Palli" in 2010 with the DoE, he said.
He added that the hill cutting had been going on unabated.
"Most of the incidents of hill cutting remain unnoticed as the hills, which are located in the remote areas, are razed at night", said Mohammed Kamal Hossain, professor of the Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences at Chittagong University. Alone in Chittagong city and adjacent Sitakunda upazila, he said, at least 150 spots had been found in a recent field survey by one of his students.
"More than a hundred hills of Chittagong city have been razed in the last three decades in the name of development, and the process still goes on, which has been taking a
toll on local flora and fauna," said Kamal.
Apart from the massive environmental hazards, hill cutting had also been causing landslides, said Kamal, adding that hundreds of people had been killed in such incidents.
Bangladesh Environment Preservation Act 1 995 (amended in 2000) and Bangladesh Building Construction Act 1952
enjoin that no hills could be cut without the approval of the authorities, said Advocate Anwarul Islam Chowdhury, Chittagong division coordinator of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers' Association (Bela).
Experts demanded that all existing hills be declared preserved areas, and be saved by planting trees under social forestation.