Staff Reporter :
Former Adviser of the caretaker government Sultana Kamal on Sunday urged the government for immediate cancellation of the approval of 320 industries near the Sudarbans.
Of the industries, 118 factories got approval from Directorate of Environment after 2015, 186 industries got approval in the nineties and 16 very recently.
Sultana Kamal, the Convener of National Committee to Protect Sundarbans said it in a press conference yesterday at Dhaka Reporter Unity demanding cancellation of the approval of all industries near the UNESCO declared World Heritage Forest. She claimed, many rivers and marshy lands have spread in the Sundarbans like net occupying 31.1 per cent areas of the forest.
It is common that industrial pollution will be threat to the mangrove forest and its plant and animals, she said.
“We can build industry in any other place instead of Sundarbans as we cannot build the natural forest like Sundarbans,” Sultan Kamal said.
She placed four points recommendation to the government for immediate implementation. These are: To stop construction of 320 industries, private and public establishment, and cancellation of the allotment of those plots, to implement UNESCO’s 11 points recommendation taken at Poland conferment recently, to cancel the government’s prepared Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report as it was biased, make a fresh EAI report by a combined experts’ committee with UNESCO, and to increase manpower in forest department and train them regarding protecting of the flora and fauna of the forest.
