All types of waste should be stopped to keep the river pollution free: LGRD Minister

Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Minister Md Tajul Islam said that to keep the river free from pollution, all types of waste, including household, medical and agricultural, should be stopped. He said this while speaking as the chief guest at the Gathi High Level Committee Workshop on the preparation of Master Plan for Meghna River on the online platform Zoom app today. The Inception Report prepared for the Institute of Water Modelling-IWM Masterplan was presented at the workshop. It had CEGIS as a partner institution.

On the directives of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, a decision has been taken to formulate a master plan to prevent pollution, free encroachment and restore navigability of the Meghna River. Due to the regular dumping of sewage and industrial waste in the rivers of the country including Dhaka and other factories, the river water is being polluted. Due to this, the quality of water is getting damaged as well as the breeding of fishes is being greatly hindered. Therefore, the government is formulating a master plan to make other rivers around Dhaka free of encroachment, prevent pollution and restore navigability.

Master planning is being done to ensure that the Meghna River is not subject to pollution and encroachment and to meet future needs and challenges. If it is enacted, it will be possible to save Meghna river. Dhaka WASA will draw water from the Meghna river to supply water to Dhaka city. But we don't have any specific study report about how much water is withdrawn so that the river will not lose its identity. They will be included in this master plan. Necessary instructions have been given to the consultants in Elksha.

In addition to the representatives of various development partner countries including AFD, KFW, EIB, ADB, the secretaries of various ministries/departments, heads of various government departments/organizations and the respective districts in the workshop chaired by Senior Secretary of Local Government Department Helaluddin Ahmed and moderated by Engineer Taksim A Khan, Managing Director of Dhaka Wasa. Administrators participate.

Earlier this year, an agreement was signed with Institute of Water Modeling-IWM and Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services-CEGIS under the overall supervision of Dhaka WASA to prepare a master plan to protect the Meghna River from encroachment, pollution and navigability crisis.