Vanishing wetlands

IT is extremely disheartening to see the catchment areas in an around Dhaka city reducing at an increasing rate every year. More than 70 percent of the catchment areas in the eastern fringes of the city have already been filled up, illegally. And what is galling is the fact that there has been an increased propensity to grab more low lands ever since the government gazette on the Detailed Area Planning was issued in 2010. Not only wetlands but even parts of rivers that provide sustenance to the Capital have been illegally gobbled up.
The matter raises some serious concerns about not only a lack of committment on the part of the successive governments but also collusion of the administration with the illegal land grabbers. The bleak picture was revealed at a seminar on “Saving Rivers and Water Bodies in an around Dhaka City” held in the Capital on Saturday.
That there has been a brazen lack of supervision is very clear. We call upon the relevant agencies of the government including the District Administration to explain how, in spite of the Gazette and judicial orders to protect wetlands, more than 700 acres of low lands, i.e. double the amount before the gazette was issued on October 22, 2010, have been filled up by land encroachers.
It is matter of life and death for Dhaka city that would become well nigh unlivable if the remaining water bodies are not spared the grabbers’ clutch. The administration should move fast to arrest the situation.