Allegations have been raised against some influential persons about cutting hills for grabbing lands in different parts of Chittagong. It’s an old trend also to collect sand and mud by cutting hills in an unplanned way. But there is no administrative action is seen against it.
Hills naturally balance the earth. So, hill cutting causes a number of long term effects, which can gradually destroy the ecosystem, affect river regime, regional climate and biodiversity. Not only that, destruction of hill also affects indigenous flora and fauna. On the other hand, the fertile topsoil with enriched nutrient and biomass are removed. Besides, further growth of plants and trees from the cut portion of the hill takes a long time. The deforestation can change the microclimatic condition of like rainfall, temperature, wind velocity, etcetera.
Destruction of hills in earthquake prone zones -like Chittagong will obviously aggravate risk as it will leave some sorts of imbalance in earth pressure.
Earlier a report said 200 culprits have so far been identified in 155 Hilly districts of CHT. Later, 100 cases were 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 Ministry of Environment and Forest and Chittagong Development Authority prohibited hill-cutting in 2005. But nobody cares. Though the government promised stern action against those responsible for the hill-cutting, no big shot has yet punished till the date. Despite false promise nothing is being done to stop abuses of hills by powerful people. The administration has to explain their weakness.
