Chittagong Bureau :
Patenga Sea Beach at the scenic confluence of the Bay of Bengal and the river Karnaphuli is now under the grip of illegal shop owners who have set up hundreds of shops obstructing the natural views and causing severe pollution to the beach with used foodstuffs and other wastes.
The entire area of Patenga Sea Beach with an embankment-cum-promenade made of large boulders is now virtually inaccessible to visitors who come to enjoy the scenic beauty. Tourists are confronted with hundreds of over-enthusiastic shop workers who often use physical obstructions to force the visitors to buy their products on sale.
The sandy beach along Patenga, 15-kilometres from the Chittagong city center, looks dirty with litter all around. Local people said that most wastes–produced in the 500 illegal shops and by thousands of visitors–end up in the sea and often washed ashore. The beach also wears a telltale sign of oil sleek caused by the ships in the outer anchorage.
The Water Development Board (WDB) officials are now considering leasing out the beach to these unauthorized shop owners. The officials of WDB said that they have submitted two proposals to the authorities.
The first proposal asks the deputy commissioner of Chittagong to evict the illegal shops and clear the embankment and the beach. The second proposal, now under active consideration in the WDB and the relevant ministry in Dhaka, proposes to lease the area out “on temporary basis” to the encroaching quarters. Tourists who visit Patenga find no recreation whatsoever. Instead, they hastily leave the area being irritated by the workers in the restaurants, tea stalls and shops selling conch shells and foreign souvenir. . The leaders of the Patenga Sea Beach Shop Owners’ Co-operative Ltd, claimed that all shop owners come from Phul Chari Para, Katgor and Charpara villages and they are victims of erosion and land acquisition. According to local people, several hundred shops were set up within the last several years under direct patronage of ruling party men with the hope that once the government decides to lease out the land, every party man will benefit from it.
Patenga Sea Beach at the scenic confluence of the Bay of Bengal and the river Karnaphuli is now under the grip of illegal shop owners who have set up hundreds of shops obstructing the natural views and causing severe pollution to the beach with used foodstuffs and other wastes.
The entire area of Patenga Sea Beach with an embankment-cum-promenade made of large boulders is now virtually inaccessible to visitors who come to enjoy the scenic beauty. Tourists are confronted with hundreds of over-enthusiastic shop workers who often use physical obstructions to force the visitors to buy their products on sale.
The sandy beach along Patenga, 15-kilometres from the Chittagong city center, looks dirty with litter all around. Local people said that most wastes–produced in the 500 illegal shops and by thousands of visitors–end up in the sea and often washed ashore. The beach also wears a telltale sign of oil sleek caused by the ships in the outer anchorage.
The Water Development Board (WDB) officials are now considering leasing out the beach to these unauthorized shop owners. The officials of WDB said that they have submitted two proposals to the authorities.
The first proposal asks the deputy commissioner of Chittagong to evict the illegal shops and clear the embankment and the beach. The second proposal, now under active consideration in the WDB and the relevant ministry in Dhaka, proposes to lease the area out “on temporary basis” to the encroaching quarters. Tourists who visit Patenga find no recreation whatsoever. Instead, they hastily leave the area being irritated by the workers in the restaurants, tea stalls and shops selling conch shells and foreign souvenir. . The leaders of the Patenga Sea Beach Shop Owners’ Co-operative Ltd, claimed that all shop owners come from Phul Chari Para, Katgor and Charpara villages and they are victims of erosion and land acquisition. According to local people, several hundred shops were set up within the last several years under direct patronage of ruling party men with the hope that once the government decides to lease out the land, every party man will benefit from it.
