A certain group has started to disrupt the ongoing dredging activities in the inner bar of Mongla port. This group is hampering the ongoing development of the port by carrying out various propaganda. Commodore Abdul Wadud Tarafdar, a member of the Mongla Port Authority (Harbor and Marine), made the comments at a news conference.
On Sunday at 12 noon in the meeting room of the port authorities, Tarafdar further said that the dredging of 23.4 meters from Harbaria to the jetty started immediately on March 23, 2021 when 9.5 meters of commercial vessels entered the port. The port authorities occupied 700 acres of land from Jaymonirgola in Mongla upazila to Kainmari for two years to dump the dredging sand.
The owner of the land will be given back their land after using the land with compensation. Besides, as the Sundarbans is a World Heritage Site, dredging soil cannot be dumped in the Sundarbans under any circumstances.Therefore, in the greater interest, dredging sand has to be dumped on the land along the Pashur river outside the Sundarbans.
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However an insidious group is trying to run a so-called movement by obstructing the dumping of sand on this land. The land leased by the port authorities is heating up the movement for agricultural land. Commodore Abdul Tarafdar, a senior official of the port authority, said that legal action would be taken against the beneficiaries. According to the port authorities, the depth of the 23.4 meter waterway from Harbaria Anchorage to the jetty of Mongla port is low, which is hampering the movement of commercial vessels.
This problem was also at the entrance or outer bar of the port channel. However, the authorities have recently solved this problem by bringing back navigability by dredging. Now 9.5 meters of domestic and foreign merchant ships are anchored effortlessly at Harbaria.
However the problem is with the inner bar (from Harbaria to Bandar Jetty) 23.4 meters. Port authorities have already started dredging to restore its navigability. The port authority started this program on March 13, 2021 at a cost of Tk 793 crore.
Also present at the press conference on the implementation and importance of dredging project at Inner Bar of Mongla Port Channel on Sunday afternoon were members of Port Authority (Engineering and Development) Md Imtiaz Hossain, Secretary and Harbor Master Commander Sheikh Fakhar Uddin, Chief Finance and Accounting Officer Md Siddiqur Rahman. Chief Engineer of Civil and Hydraulic Department Md. Shawkat Ali were also present.