Amid rising air pollution around the capital, contributed by dust and smoke from brickfields that went into operation at the beginning of the dry winter season, the Department of Environment (DoE) has started its crackdown against errant kilns operating without clearance.
A team of DoE enforcers, led by the state Minister for environment and forests, demolished two kilns on the Birulia embankment at Ashulia on Wednesday.Their owners were fined Tk. 2 lakh for operating without licence from the district administration and environmental clearance from the DoE. The fines were imposed by a magistrate, DoE sources said.
Two others were served notices to appear before the magistrate for hearing to explain why action should not be taken against them.
The team also demolished six pyrolysis factories near a power sub-station at Aminbazar, contributing to the air pollution by producing lubricants burning used automobile tyres.
Although the belated DoE action deserved appreciation, they left several questions unanswered.
How could the brick kilns start work at the end of November by pumping out water from the vast wetland at Ashulia and digging out surface soil with excavators?
They also set up kilns with chimneys and brought coal and wood from felled trees available in abundance around forests in Savar and Gazipur. The trees were brought in by human haulers or bullock carts and stacked illegally for some time.
Most of the kilns renewed their licence and clearance by declaring that they were using the Hoffman method before the expiry of their time in December.
DoE officials said at least 60 per cent of the brickfields have converted to the modern method of making bricks without burning fossil fuel for their kilns. But recent TV footage shows kilns belching out white smoke that indicates they are using wood. But others along the  Buriganga river show mostly black smoke. This means that coal, that too the cheap, sulphur-rich variety imported from India and Indonesia, is being used. Both are prohibited.
Also, the kilns have gone into operation in and around agricultural lands and villages using top soil from the farmlands, available after harvesting.
Brickfield owners say they were abiding by the rules. But bureaucratic dilly-dallying delayed their preparation for renewal of licence before going for production to feed the need for construction, which goes side-by-side with the brick making season.
In Dhaka city, the air quality has reached a critical stage at the beginning of the new year. Dust, fumes from exhausts of automobiles running on diesel and octane, combining with burning of tyres, plastic and coal-fired brick kilns, have contributed to it.
A recent study by DoE experts showed that on January 10 the quality of air over the city was well beyond the benchmark level of clean air. The air composition showed it has different chemical compounds, besides sulphur and dust. The sulphur came mostly from burning of coal and diesel, the study observed.