Capital Petroleum Company unlawfully extracting sands breaking rules for filling up farmland adjacent to Bay of Bengal area disregarding fines or warnings. The company leased out eight acres of land from Water Development Board (WDB) in 2018 for business purposes, but in the process, during the last four months, they have actually devastated that arable land by filling it all up for fulfilling their own interest. As the e-sands wasn’t enough, the company continued to lift sand from adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal, specifically Chattogram’s Sitakunda upazila, despite multiple fines and warnings reported to have been imposed on them from the relevant authorities.
Earlier, the company has reportedly been fined thrice and got warning several times for their illegal act of lifting sand from the sea and filling farmland in Chattogram’s Sitakunda upazila. Again, violating relevant rules and terms of the lease, the company filled up more than eight acres of cropland in the last four months at Barabkunda area, under the administration’s nose. On the other hand, due to the extraction, several deep holes have been made in the seashore area, notwithstanding this; the authorities have yet to take any legal action.
In the same process, with the help of four dredgers and five bulkhead carriers, the company is extracting sand from the Bay of Bengal, and it is being taken kilometres away from the coastline through pipelines. A worker there said, a dredger can lift at least 7,000 cubic feet of sand every day, but the company is extracting at least 28,000 cubic feet daily and dumping it in its land. According to the Sand Fields and Soil Management Act, 2010, extracting sand from open spaces and riverbeds for commercial purposes without permission from authorities concerned is a punishable offence.
The relevant government functionaries shall have to take the matter seriously in order to protect the environment in line with the spirit of worldwide campaign for protecting weather and environment. The move will help Bangladesh strengthen its effort to “Blue Economy”.
