Low-rise bridges around Dhaka including Babubazar and Tongi Rail Bridge will be rebuilt after their demolition.
Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD) Minister Md Tajul Islam on Sunday said this at the end of a meeting held in the conference room of the Local Government Department.
The meeting was organized to review the progress of the implementation of the master plan for the rivers around Dhaka to prevent pollution and increase navigability.
The minister said that 13 low-rise bridges have been identified which were built on the rivers and canals around Dhaka, are unsuitable for vessels’ navigation. There is no alternative to increase the height of these bridges to keep vessels movement normal.
Therefore, it has been decided to rebuild or demolish these bridges and build new ones to keep the navigation system smooth.
Of these 13 bridges, 6 are under the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), 6 under the Roads and Bridges Department and 1 under the Railway Ministry, the Minister added.
Md Tajul Islam told the reporters that in order to keep the rivers around Dhaka free from pollution, an initiative has been taken to set up ‘Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP)’ by identifying the industries on the bank of the rivers.
He said more than 2,000 industries had been identified along the rivers and ETPs have already been set up in 1,400 industries.
“Factories or industries without ETP are being raided and fined and several factories have already been shut down. A project to use modern technology with the help of the World Bank (WB) has been taken up by the Department of Environment to keep the ETP in operation in the industry”, the minister said.
Responding to a question from journalists on how to preserve the occupied lands, the Minister said, “The Ministry of Shipping would vacate the river banks or places which would be handed over to them by the city corporations and the city corporations would preserve, beautify, urbanize and build eco-parks in these places. Everything will be done so that the rescued places could not be reoccupied.”
In this context, he said the Ministry of Shipping, Ministry of Water Resources and Two Dhaka City Corporations are in a joint move to free the illegally occupied rivers, canals and government installations and the operation is going on.
Responding to another question from the reporters about the duration of different projects, the Minister said that no matter what project is taken up, time cannot be wasted for a long time.
