Protect Buriganga from being a dumping ground for wastes

THE river Buriganga is dying due to a lack of proper protective measures by the authorities concerned. News reports have it that 62 types of chemical waste are discharged from mills and factories, households, sewerage lines and burnt oil and they are destroying the river and polluting its water making it unsafe for drinking. Even taking a bath is not safe now due to the risk of contracting skin diseases. Besides, illegal land grabbers are creating new structures to stop its natural flow at many points. The river now carries only toxic waste water during the seven months of the dry season from November to May. Several surveys have claimed that the level of pollution in some parts of Buriganga is so high that no fish can survive. Media reports said nearly one thousand industrial units, including dyeing mills, tanneries and plastic factories in the Dhaka Metropolitan Area, are polluting the river water. Dyeing and tannery factories on the river bank are the biggest polluters as we can see.
Some other reports said, at least one thousand cubic meters of untreated domestic and industrial effluents are discharged into the river Buriganga every day. Most industries around the river belt do not have treatment plants. Besides, at least 300 brick kilns are draining out their waste. As a result, water treatment plants along the river Buriganga are even unable to treat the polluted water. The river is losing its navigation channel causing problems to the river transport system and is also becoming narrow due to land grabbing to cause
yet another problem with respect to the drainage of flood water during the monsoon.
As we see these are not anything new and they have been extensively reported so far. But the question is why the government is failing to protect the environmental lifeline of the city dwellers from becoming degraded and dysfunctional. It is known that politically influential land encroachers are at work to raise illegal structures on the river banks to slowly convert it to their personal property. On many occasions concerned authorities have carried out eviction drives just as an eye wash but grabbing did not stop. Even a High Court rule on June 2011 to stop drainage of industrial wastes into the river within one year has passed almost unattended.
The question now arises as to whether the river can be saved or is it to be abandoned to the polluters and land grabbers. So far the government and the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), now bifurcated into two bodies have failed to put any effective remedial measures to protect the water from waste effluents and save the land from grabbers. In fact many senior officials are indirectly involved to facilitate the river land grabbing in lieu of getting personal benefits. Water pollution also continues. It takes us back to the question of the basic honesty of officials and the capacity of the government machinery to prove equal to the task. We can’t surrender to dishonest officials and powerful land grabbers. The river must be saved.