Mongla channel dredging: More sand dumped on private land than promised

The Mongla port authorities are dumping more sand, extracted during a dredging project, on private land in Bagerhat’s Joymonirgol, violating the land acquisition contract conditions, claim landowners.

They claim the sand piles have become as high as 20-25 feet from the Mongla-Joymonirgol road surface in some places, though the contract said those would not exceed five to six feet.

Most of the landowners are local people, and they would use their land for fish farming.

The landowners claim they now need a minimum of Tk 5-10 lakh per acre to remove the sand and have demanded compensation.

“We do not know how and where we will remove such a huge amount of sand. The port authorities said they would give landowners Tk 2 lakh per acre for removing it, but that is not enough,” a landowner said.

“Some of the land is owned by companies. They will probably get some facilities from the authorities, but we the general people do not even know how to remove this sand,” another landowner said.

But Shawkot Ali, chief engineer of Mongla port, told The Business Post the sand piles are five to six feet from the road surface.

“They may have been a bit higher in some places, but I think there has been no violation of the contract.”

Mongla Upazila Nirbahi Officer Kamalesh Majumder told The Business Post he had visited the area and found that the amount of sand had exceeded the contract.

“It is a big project and the port authorities said the sand piles would not exceed five to six feet in height. But the piles are larger. I requested the port authorities to stop excessive dumping,” he said.

On February 10, the port authorities sent a letter to the landowners, seeking their cooperation in the project. They also said providing compensation was under process.

Western Engineering, a construction company that owns some of the land, gave the port authorities verbal permission to dump sand, subject to receiving compensation.

“They said they would give me Tk 2 lakh per acre to remove the sand dumped on the company’s land. The sand piles have now become too high. How will I remove those and where?” Bashir Ahmed, managing director of the company, told The Business Post.

“We requested the port authorities to stop this, but they are continuously dumping sand at midnight. I need a minimum of Tk 60 crore to remove this sand,” he added.

A victim even wrote a letter to the Mongla port chief engineer, demanding compensation of Tk 50-60 crore. Otherwise, he said he would take legal action.

Besides, Western Engineering sent a letter to the deputy commissioner of Bagerhat and the district’s assistant commissioner (land), requesting them to take steps in this regard.

The government started dredging the Mongla port channel at a cost of Tk 793.72 crore to increase navigability and facilitate the anchoring of large container vessels.

On March 13, State Minister for Shipping Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury inaugurated the project.