Special Correspondent :
A government taskforce comprising officials of relevant agencies on Thursday started drive against hazardous chemical factories and warehouses to make Old Dhaka free from risks of fire.
The month-long drive began from Old Dhaka’s Shahidnagar and Islambagh areas from around 11:30am and continued till 1pm.
Utility services of 21 holdings were cut during the drive, conducted by two teams of the task force. All these holdings had either combustible chemical warehouses or factories.
A team led by Dhaka South City Corporation’s (DSCC) Chief of Waste Management Air Commodore Jahid Hossain conducted operation at Shahidnagar, while another by DSCC’s Chief Health Officer Brigadier General Sharif Ahmed at Islambagh.
“None of house owners were found. We disconnected utility lines of the buildings and warned the owners,” Sharif Ahmed told media.
He said, “We have left for them messages to evict the warehouses by Saturday. We will be back on Sunday. If we again find chemicals there, legal action will be taken against them.”
Sharif Ahmed also said that utility services would be restored on condition of the removal of godowns by this time.
The taskforce to remove the chemical warehouses from Old Dhaka areas was formed after a devastating fire in Old Dhaka’s Chawkbazar on February 20 that left 70 people dead and many others injured.
Officials said the taskforce would work to find the chemical warehouses, factories and shops in the old part of the city and take immediate action against them.
Earlier, the traders have been asked to shift their chemical storage facilities to an open space outside the city temporarily as long as they are not rehabilitated.
The government earlier set August 25 as the deadline for relocation of all chemical warehouses and factories from Old Dhaka.
On Wednesday, the industries ministry at a meeting selected two sites for relocating nearly 4,000 dangerous chemical warehouses and factories from Old Dhaka.
The two temporary sites are Tongi in Gazipur and Postogola in the capital.
The site in Tongi is an empty land of the state-run Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation, and the location in Postogola was previously owned by the state-run Ujala Match Factory.
After the Nimtoli tragedy, the government took up four projects to relocate four types of industries (chemical, plastic, printing and light electronics) from Old part of the capital.
But the implementation of those projects still remains at the preliminary stage mainly due to problems associated with land acquisition and bureaucratic tangles.
