Show your plan for protecting rivers

The High Court yesterday ordered the government to make a complete list of all the rivers in the country and to come up with an action plan on how the rivers will be protected from encroachers.

The list and the action plan must be submitted to the court in six months.

The finance ministry, National River Conservation Commission (NRCC), Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, and the divisional commissioners were asked to comply with this directive.

The HC also ordered the authorities concerned to demarcate the boundaries of the Turag river as per cadastral survey record from 1940.

At the same time, the HC issued a rule asking the authorities concerned of the government to explain why they should not be directed to evict the land grabbers and encroachers from the rivers across the country and why their failure in this regard should not be declared illegal.

The HC bench of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Md Kamrul Hossain Mollah came up with the orders and rule while hearing a writ petition filed by Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela), seeking necessary directives on the issue.

Bela's Chief Executive Officer Syeda Rizwana Hasan, who moved the writ petition, told The Daily Star that different government departments mention different numbers of rivers of the country. The numbers of grabbers also vary.

According to the Bangladesh Water Development Board, there are 405 rivers while NRCC says the number is over 770, and shipping ministry data says the number is 496. However, river researcher M Inamul Haque said he prepared a list of 1,182 rivers.

The NRCC in its 2019 report said the number of river grabbers is 57,390 in the country, but the state minister for shipping recently told parliament that the number is 65,127, Rizwan said.

In a verdict pronounced in 2016, the HC termed river grabbing a criminal offence. "Killing a river is virtually a collective suicide for all," the court observed and added, "Killing a river is killing both the present and the future generations."

Another HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman yesterday asked four officials to explain in four weeks why contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against them for failing to submit to the court a report on the steps taken to evict encroachers from the Bangshi river in Savar.

The officials are: the director general of the Department of Environment, deputy commissioner of Dhaka, and the upazila nirbahi officer and assistant commissioner (land) of Savar.