The grabbers' extended pasture

But who cares for the city's environmental life-lines? Governance, indeed, is at its poorest there. What has basically triggered this serious note of concern is an expose our paper has done on brick and sand traders filling up a canal and wetland along Dhaka Flood Protection Embankment.

The huge encroachment activity near Rayerbazar Martyred Intellectuals' Monument is set to cause extensive water-logging in the adjoining areas such as Mohammadpur, Basila, Rayerbazar and Dhanmondi.

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There has been multi-layered negligence of duty on the part of at least three authorities that one can readily identify. In the first, place it was for the Water Development Board outfit to have detected the illegal filling operation along the flood protection embankment and made attempts to resist it. Failing which, of course, they could report it to the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) whose primary responsibility it is to ensure conservation of wetlands in and around the capital.

This is for the umpteenth time that wetland conservation law is being violated; yet, Rajuk has been a mute spectator to it. Rajuk's failure cannot be explained away in terms of inadequacy of manpower alone; there have been instances of turning a blind eye to such illegal activities as well. Besides, why must the nation suffer through lack of logistical or manpower support for the oversight body when a properly envisioned development project could have catered for its logistical requirement?

The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), too, seemed to have a role in it. The city fathers could prevent there cleaners and truck drivers selling garbage to the land grabbers to fill their illegally occupied wetland portions with. But they didn't.

The much-heralded reclamation drive for canals gone derelict through physical encroachments has all but fizzled out, so have been the campaigns to clear the rivers of illegal structures. The lakes, too, have been victims of intrusion. And now, the wetlands are being eyed wistfully on. There must be a unified authority to combat the big business of land expropriation.