Locally influential people and land grabbers have built several illegal structures occupying the major portion of the banks of the Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Dhaleswari rivers. Many of these people are running illegal businesses by setting up saw-mills, factories, and stores of bricks, stones and sands on the encroached areas in the absence of strong monitoring activities. Besides, many multi-storied buildings are also being constructed grabbing the river banks, according to sources.

Against this backdrop, the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) has decided to conduct an 11-day eviction drive to remove the illegal structures from the river banks. The eviction drive will begin from today  with the assistance of the local administration.  

“We have prepared a list of 1,000 structures that have been built on the river banks illegally. All of those will be removed during our eviction drive,” said BIWTA joint director AKM Arif Uddin (Dhaka river port) yesterday.

According to Arif, there are two seven-storey residential buildings, three four-storey residential buildings, 15 one-storey buildings and 70 sawmills among the illegal structures.

A section of locally influential people and land grabbers re-occupy the river banks immediately after eviction drives, Noor Hossain, assistant director of the BIWTA, told this correspondent.

“We have already taken up projects to set up eco-parks and flower gardens on the eveicted areas of the river banks. We'll also construct walkways. These initiatives will be taken to prevent unscrupulous people from grabbing the land,” he said in reply to a query.

“All the illegal factories set up on the river banks will be evicted during our 11-day drive,” he added.

He said that BIWTA magistrate Mostafizur Rahman would conduct the 11-day eviction drive.

When asked about several readymade mixtures factories along the river banks, Hossain replied: “the BIWTA is issuing license to these factories. This step will help protect the river banks from being grabbed further.”

The eviction drive is a continuous process, he added.

The drive will be conducted from Keraniganj, Sadarghat, Kamrangirchar and up to Gabtoli, he said, adding that the drive could be expanded on the basis of illegal structures.

According to BIWTA sources, around 10,000 illegal structures have been evicted so far in the last few years from the river banks.