S A Shofiee, Sylhet :
A class of unscrupulous businessmen are cutting down small and big hills and hills in various places in Jaflong area of Gowainghat upazila of Sylhet and extracting stones from the ground in an unplanned manner. As well as causing environmental damage, the government is losing billions of taka in revenue.
Jaflong is the northernmost border town of Gowainghat upazila of Sylhet. High-quality gravel is found underground in a vast area of this upazila. Stones can be found by digging a little soil in this region. As a result, for a long time, a class of privileged people in various areas including Sonatila, Kandubasti, Mandirjum, Shmashanghat, Sangrampunji, Londoni Bazar, Guchchagram, some have been extracting these stones from their own land, some on lease from others. They are regularly selling the extracted stones to illegally established crushing mills.
According to the government’s land and revenue policies, the government is the owner of all natural resources under the ground in any part of the country. The upazila and district administration will maintain and supervise these resources on behalf of the government. For this, if any person or organization wants to extract any underground resource for commercial purposes, they have to deposit a revenue fee at the prescribed rate in the government treasury, and at the same time, they have to follow the appropriate government policies. No one is paying attention to these rules in the Jaflong area. By ignoring the government rules, a class of employees and officials of the concerned departments and vested unemployed political figures are freely carrying out this evil act in collusion with vested interests. Not only that, no one is also looking into whether the environmental balance is being damaged by the extraction of gravel and sand under the ground.
It was seen on-site at the stone extraction area that groups of workers have extracted sand and stones from the Jaflong River flowing from Dawki in Meghalaya, India, as well as from the surrounding small and large hills and plains. In addition to the Jaflong quarry, stone miners are continuing to extract sand and stone by setting up numerous bomb machines or silo machines in an area of 10 kilometers from the zero line of the Dauki Jaflong River. The common people of the area claim that at present, individuals or syndicates who consider themselves members of the ruling party are enjoying this benefit. Many of them have also been expelled from the party for violating party discipline.
On March 20 of this year, the Department of Environment, Sylhet, filed a case as the plaintiff. More than a hundred people, including BNP leaders Md. Rafiqul Islam Shahparan and Md. Shah Alam Swapan, have been accused in the case. Despite the case, these greedy people do not stop from committing destruction.
A member of this syndicate named Abul Kashem was arrested by the Bangladesh Army on Monday, April 28. The Jaflong area is now facing a threat with the unexpected and dangerous change in the course of the river. In the interest of preserving the balance of the environment, ordinary people in the area are drawing the attention of the administration to take strict measures to immediately stop such unplanned environmentally destructive stone and sand extraction processes.
