Development at the cost of the environment?

Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) has razed hills violating environmental rules to construct a 6-km long link road through the hilly areas of Salimpur in the district’s Sitakunda upazila. The hills were razed for CDA’s ongoing project titled “Construction of Link Road from Dhaka Trunk Road to Bayezid Bostami Road including Loop Road at the outer periphery of Asian University for Women.” Last year the Department of Environment (DoE) issued two show-cause notices to the project director and asked him to attend a hearing for unauthorized hill cutting to implement the project. It also slapped a fine of Tk10 lakh for damaging ecology and degrading environment through illegally cutting hills at the project site in line with a section of Environment Conservation (Amendment) Act 2010. According to the act, hill cutting is a cognizable offence and no government, semi-government or autonomous organization is allowed to cut or raze hills without prior permission from related authorities. The CDA has been working on the project without obtaining the clearance certificate from the DoE. Asked why the project was started before obtaining environmental clearance certificate, Project Director Rajib Das could not give any satisfactory reply. “The project approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) has to be completed by the deadline. We have already applied for the environmental clearance certificate for the project and hope to get it within next two weeks.”

Read more: http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/environment/2018/03/03/development-cost-environment/

Posted by admin on Mar 5 2018. Filed under Bangladesh Exclusive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry