Despite a Supreme Court order to relocate the tanneries from the capital’s Hazaribagh to Savar for the purpose of environmental protection, some tanneries are yet to relocate their factories, resulting in suffering for the city people and immense damage to the environment.
Those tannery owners who are yet to relocate their tanneries, however, have been paying the fine imposed by the SC. On July 18, a four-member bench of the Appellate Division had ordered 154 Hazaribagh tannery owners who have not yet shifted their tanneries to Savar to pay a daily fine of Tk. 10,000 for damaging the environment till they move out. The Supreme Court (SC) commuted the daily fine imposed on tannery owners to Tk. 10,000 from the previous fine amount of Tk. 50,000 fixed by the High Court (HC), following an appeal filed by the tanners' association. This amount has to be paid by every tannery for each day of its failure to relocate to the specified area.
The apex court said that half of the money will be given to the Bangladesh Liver Foundation and the other half will be deposited as government funds. On September 2, industries ministry secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan had said that the 154 tannery owners paid up Tk. 55.9 lakh through the Sonali Bank industrial building corporate branch in Dhaka between August 11 and 16. Advocate Manzill Murshid, counsel for the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB), told The Independent that the apex court’s verdict was a major progress towards the relocation of the hazardous industry from Hazaribagh to Savar. He said that it is very unfortunate that several tannery owners are yet to relocate their factories. In response to a question, Manzil Murshid said that he came to know from newspaper reports that the tannery owners have paid some of fined amount. “I do not have any updated information about the matter,” he added. In a verdict in 2001, the HC had directed the govt to take steps to relocate the tanneries from Hazaribagh within two years to save the Buriganga. It later extended the deadline several times.