Savar tanneries’ shutdown comes too late in the day

We are delighted to hear that the environment ministry has agreed to its watchdog's recommendation to shut down the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate immediately, which has been causing irreparable damage to the Dhaleshwari River for the last 10 years. The unchecked dumping of toxic waste generated at the tanneries has not only choked the river, but has had severe repercussions on the lives and livelihoods of the people living around it as well.

While we applaud this step in the right direction, we feel compelled to point out that this decision has already come too late in the day. According to a 2019 report by The Daily Star, ever since the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate started dumping effluents into the river in mid-2016, this relentless pollution has all but killed the Dhaleshwari. Around 1,500 fishermen who used to earn a livelihood from the river have had to move on to other professions, there is a constant stench emanating from its waters—which has become unusable even for farming, let alone bathing—and children living near it have been put at risk of water-borne diseases. The excuse given for this sorry state of affairs is that the estate simply does not have the capacity to treat all the waste that it generates. But why has this capacity not been built up in all these years?

What truly beggars belief is that this wanton destruction of the river and its surrounding environment, exposing local populations to a myriad of health hazards, has been going on despite the fact that the estate has no environmental clearance from the relevant authorities. The Department of Environment's own statistics show that, in the last three years, the estate has dumped around 1.60 lakh cubic metres of waste into the river—yet, it has been allowed to continue operating.

According to a report in this daily, the process of shutting down the Savar tannery estate will now be initiated only after the industries ministry receives a letter from the environment ministry. We urge the authorities to not drag their feet in going through these different layers of administration, especially since it has already taken more than three months from the initial recommendation to shut down the estate to actually coming to the decision to follow it. We are also concerned to find that the Savar tannery estate will be given the opportunity to apply for fresh environmental clearance and re-start operations after meeting all necessary requirements. Can a tannery estate built on the banks of a dying river ever meet these requirements? In 2003, the government took the initiative to move all tanneries from the capital's Hazaribagh area to protect the Buriganga. We strongly urge the authorities to take a similar initiative in the case of the Savar estate in order to protect the Dhaleshwari and restore the local environment.