ALLEGATION against the local Member of Parliament – Didarul Alam’s family business firm is that it was cutting hills for building a steel plant in the area of Boro Kumira at Sitakunda, Chittagong.
The factory authority, however, claims the hills are not being cut; but some portions of the hill have been trimmed to ground level. Miscreants’ hill cutting makes the lives of those living in hilly areas risky and considering this criminal offence, they should be taken under trial for awarding exemplary punishment.
Hill cutting causes a number of long term effects, which can gradually destroy the ecosystem, affect river regime, regional climate and biodiversity as hills naturally balance the earth. Destruction of hill affects indigenous flora and fauna. On the other hand, the fertile topsoil with enriched nutrient and biomass are removed. Further growth of plants and trees from the cut portion of the hill are thus retarded or takes a long time. Such deforestation can change the microclimatic condition of the region like rainfall, temperature, wind velocity, etc. and also lead to soil erosion removing top soils which will further retard plant growth. Most of the earthquakes in the world occurred along the fault lines of the tectonic plates. Chittagong and Sylhet, the two regions are at a very close distance from the fault line and thus highly susceptible to earthquakes. Destruction of hills along such sensitive zones will obviously aggravate earthquake risk as it will leave some sorts of imbalance in earth pressure.
The Ministry of Environment and Forest and Chittagong Development Authority prohibited hill-cutting in 2005, but to no avail. In Chittagong area, 8000 people were evacuated and the government promised stern action against those responsible for the hill-cutting stating that ‘none whoever he is would be spared from stern legal consequences if found guilty for cutting hills’. Laws regarding hill-cutting revised and set out by DOE include ‘nobody can cut and /or raze hills/till as without prior permission’; ‘otherwise according to law he will be punished by 10 years imprisonment or 10-lakh taka [$15,400] monetary punishment or both’.
Despite these stern laws nothing is being done to stop abuses of hills by powerful people. A report says 200 culprits have so far been identified in 155 Hilly districts of CHT. Till date, 100 cases have been filed against culprits, with the verdict still not clear. A hill can be cut in a matter of months but it can never ever be replaced again. It is bad that anybody should behave defying law. The local administration has to explain their weakness.
