The National Committee to Protect Shipping, Roads and Railways (NCPSRR), a rights body, on Saturday demanded immediate excavation of Gumti and Dakatia by freeing these two rivers from pollution and grabbing.
NCPSRR made the demand to ensure free flow of water and movement of inland water vessels to save Comilla from risks of environment degradation.
The organization, in a press statement, also demanded for dredging in the rivers round the year to ensure smooth navigation and keep the rivers fit for movement of vessels.
A 14-member team of the rights body comprised of experts and local green activists visited the area on Friday to see for themselves the uncontrolled sand lifting from Gumti and pollution by garbage in the river Dakatia at Tikkarchar near Gumti bridge in Comilla Town.
Led by the NCPSRR president Md Shahid Mia, the team members also include Water Resources Planning Organization’s former director general M Enamul Huq, BIWTA former director Emdadul Huq Badsha, leading green activist in Comilla Dr ABM Khorshed Alam and the NCPSRR general secretary Ashis Kumar Dey.
The team also formed a human chain on Gumti Bridge at Tikkarchar on the river Gumti, extending the committee’s support to the local people’s demand to save the rivers in a bid to save Comilla from any environmental degradation.
The statement, referring to the visit to the area, said an influential quarter was involved in uncontrolled and illegal sand lifting with dredgers from river Gumti, flowing through the northern side of Comilla city.
The committee found a huge pile of lifted sands at different places near Gumti bridge.
Express their concern about excessive sand lifting, the NCPSRR leaders said that if the upstream silts was extracted excessively and used to fill up lands, the fertile topsoil would be covered and if the downstream silts failed to pass to the Bay of Bengal, the emergence of new lands in the bay would be stopped.
As a result, the statement said, the natural resistant against sea level rise would be reduced.
The NCPSRR observed that the untreated industrial wastes from Comilla town had been polluting the Dakatia basin as the wastes were reaching there through Gangajuri river.
If the system to treat the industrial wastes can not be developed right now, the statement said, the agriculture as well as nature and environment of the area would face severe degradation.
20 shops gutted : At least 20 shops were gutted in a fire at Kongso Nagar Bazar in Burichang upazila on Friday afternoon.
Farid Ahmed, deputy assistant director of Comilla Fire Service, said the fire broke out at a hotel of the bazaar around 4:30pm following the explosion of a gas cylinder and it engulfed the adjoining establishments.
On information, four firefighting units rushed in and brought the fire under control around 5:20pm.
The affected businessmen claimed that the extent of losses caused by the fire would exceed Tk 1 crore.
