The National River Conservation Commission (NRCC) recently asked the Directorate of Land Records and Survey (DLRS) for conducting a fresh digital survey on the Buriganga River.
The order came from the consideration that many grabbers are still occupying the river even after several eviction drives.
Muzibur Rahman Howlader, the NRCC chairman, said this on Thursday during an interview with a national English daily.
He said, “The instruction was given on November 5 following a visit in the river with representatives of different government organisations including Dhaka district administration, DLRS, Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, Bangladesh Water Development Board and Dhaka South City Corporation.”
“I already instructed the DLRS to finish the digital diara survey and zonal settlement survey immediately,” Muzibur said.
“We will cross check the survey with hydro-morphological survey of the river, which will be completed by Space Research and Remote Sensing Organisation,” he said.
“DLRS officially on November 24 told me that they would initiate the diara (relating to rivers and wetlands) survey and zonal settlement survey of the river on the western part in Dhaka,” Muzibur said.
“Even after conducting eviction drives by the BIWTA and BWDB, the situation of the Buriganga, the lifeline of Dhaka, is still miserable as many public and private grabbers are occupying its land,” he said.
He added that many of the occupiers took advantages of the faulty survey conducted by the DLRS that demarcated the river land as private properties.
“Assistant commissioner’s office later issued records of rights against the illegal grabbers while other agencies like district administration, BIWTA and BWDB just overlooked while buildings were developed grabbing the land of the river,” he said.
“DSCC, Dhaka Zila Parishad, WASA, Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited rather helped the occupiers developing connecting roads and bridges as well as providing utility services,” Muzibur added.
“The land outside the western part of the embankment developed by Water Development Board from Sadarghat to Tongi is the property of the river, which had been illegally occupied by the government agencies and individuals greasing the public servants.
“The influential quarters in association of the government officials grabbed different channels on its western side.
“All the grabbers must be evicted following a proper survey and representatives of all the agencies also agreed with my view,” the chairman said.
Waterkeepers Bangladesh organising a press conference in April also expressed concern over not touching a single structure in the area that stretches from Basila to Lalbagh, responsible for blocking the old Buriganga channel during the BIWTA eviction drive.
Before initiating the eviction drive, they said BIWTA should have demarcated the rivers accordingly by consulting the agencies concerned.
A land ministry inquiry conducted in 2012 also found that Dhaka City Survey, the DLRS officials recorded 2815.56 acres of government land, including Dhaka’s rivers and canals, as private properties in 191 moujas.
A high court bench in last February, however, ordered River Conservation Commission being the custodian of the rivers to evict all grabbers immediately.
Following the survey DC office, BIWTA and BWDB would be instructed to evict all occupiers such as a government hospital, a power plant and properties owned by hundreds of businesses and individuals such as Madina Trading, Matador Limited, Panna Battery and others, he said.
The river commission chairman also said that DSCC had been instructed stop dumping solid wastes in the river while department of environment had been instructed for taking initiatives for developing CETPs in the canals connecting to the Buriganga.
“We are also amending our law keeping provisions for punishing the government agencies in case of not following instructions of the commission,” he said.
The government agencies, businesses and individuals would be punished if the orders were not followed, he said.
BIWTA’s Dhaka port officer AKM Arif Uddin, however, claimed that they evicted most of the grabbers following existing survey.
“There were some limitations but we tried our best to evict all the grabbers,” he said.
BWDB executive engineer Dewan Ainul Haque said that they would propose for acquire foreshore lands outside the Dhaka’s embankment on the western part of the capital for protecting it.
DSCC mayor Sayeed Khokon and Dhaka’s additional deputy commissioner Abul Fateh Muhammad Shariful Islam said that they would provide all required supports for implementing Buriganga River protection plan.