Home ›› 20 Nov 2021 ›› Front
The Bangladesh Economic Zone Authority has scrapped the project for supplying the Mirsarai Economic Zone with water collected from Halda River.
This decision came recently, said BEZA sources, while the Department of Environment (DOE) told The Business Post that implementing agency Chattogram Water Supply and Sewerage Authority had failed to submit any documents necessary for securing environmental clearance.
To move forward, the project needed no objection certificates from The National River Commission and Bangabandhu Fisheries Heritage Monitoring Committee, which are mandatory for securing a clearance from the DOE.
BEZA now has a 20-year-long water supply master plan. By 2025, it aims to supply 100 million litres per day (MLD) of water to the Mirsarai Economic
Zone from 40 deep tubewells, and another 20 MLD by setting up a surface water treatment plant in Mohora reservoir, Feni.
By 2040, BEZA seeks to add another 1,000 MLD of water to the zone from the Meghna-Dakatia river estuary in Chandpur, 40 MLD from Feni River, 30 MLD from a desalination plant, 5 MLD from rainwater harvesting and 12 MLD from three central effluent treatment plants.
Providing more details about the scrapped project, BEZA Project Director Abdullah Al Mahmud Faruk said, “We are no longer thinking about supplying the Mirsarai Economic Zone with water from Halda River.
“There has been indecision regarding this particular initiative, and we are leaving this project. We always consider the environmental impacts of a project before trying to implement it.”
When asked whether scrapping the plan of collecting water from Halda River was a good example of environmental conservation, the BEZA project director said, “We can say that.”
What was Beza’s plan?
Under the project titled “Feasibility study for water supply transmission in Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar from Proposed Mohora WTP (Phase-2),” BEZA wanted to supply the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar at Mirsarai with 154 million litres of water per day by setting up a water treatment plant close to the Halda River.
Upon completion of the project, implementing agency Chattogram WASA would have supplied the zone with 577 million litres of water per day.
Halda is the lone breeding ground for carp fish. Ganges Dolphin lives there, and the aquatic mammals are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) due to a probable population decline of at least 50 per cent over the last 50 years, and also a projected decline of future population.
To maintain the breeding ground for carp fish and ensure habitat conservation for Ganges Dolphins, the Ministry of Fisheries declared 23,412 acres of Halda River area as “Bangabandhu Fisheries Heritage” in December 2020.
Ramgarh and Manikchari upazilas of Khagrachari, and Raozan, Fatikchhari and Hathazari upazilas in Chattogram are part of the heritage area.
Project authorities had an obligation to secure no objection certificates from the Bangabandhu Fish Heritage Monitoring Committee, formed by a gazette notification published on 21 December this year by the fisheries ministry.
Besides, due to a High Court order, the project authorities also needed an objection certificate from the National River Commission for building a water treatment plant or installing irrigation pumps near any river in the country.
Masud Iqbal Md Shameem, director (Environmental Clearance) at DOE, said, “Chattogram WASA did not submit the documents needed for the environmental clearance. We cannot issue the certificate without the necessary documents.”
The DOE further revealed that it had sent a letter to the Chattogram WASA on February 7 this year asking for papers necessary to issue the environmental clearance, but they are yet to do so.
Muhammad Ibrahim, a board member of Chattogram WASA and additional Secretary of the Local Government Division, said, “BEZA was supposed to do everything regarding the project. We were supposed to provide just the infrastructure facilities.
“It is BEZA’s decision whether they want to cancel the project or not. However, scrapping the initiative is a good move for the environment and ecology.”
