The Piain River at Jaflong, the country’s one of the most popular tourist spots, has been losing its natural beauty for the last few years as locals’ excavation of stones from the riverbed and banks using dredger machines, locally known as ‘boma machine,’ goes on unabated at the cost of its losing beauty.
Even the tourists coming here from home and abroad are getting growingly frustrated seeing the present condition of the spot especially during the dry season.
Local sources here said a section of the traders excavate stones from the riverbed and both banks using locally-made dredgers popularly called boma machines and have been continuing their excavation work even defying a High Court directive in this regard.
As a result, the main flow of the Piain River has got divided into a number of channels thereby creating a threat to its existence. Locals while talking to this correspondent said the authorities despite their efforts to evict the traders from the failed to do so as some ruling party-backed musclemen are directly involved with the money-spinning stone business.
Gulam Sarwar, a local trader at Jaflong, said That the people became frustrated here after witnessing the present desert-like look here.
He also observed it was very difficult to find out the main flow of the Piain River in the dry seasons as stone traders excavated the riverbed and banks.
Source said over five hundred stone crushing machines are presently occupied around two square kilometers in and around Mamar Bazar area in Jaflong producing a huge amount of dusts, smoke and sound pollution creating unhygienic environment.A stone trader seeking anonymity told this correspondent “?over five thousand people are working here while around twenty thousand’s income and livelihood is directly or indirectly dependant on stone excavation.” “The stones we produce are one of the main raw materials of the country’s construction works,” he reiterated. Imran Hossain, a student of Sylhet Agriculture University, opined, “”I have visited Jaflong for six times since 2010. When I came here for the first time I enjoyed the greenery and found the Piain is flowing in a single channel.”
