A good number of brick kilns are still defying government’s rule despite facing penalty several times in the last six months.
According the Department of Environment, at least 128 brick fields were fined Tk54.16 lakh during the period.
Sources at Directorate of Environment Barisal office said 230 out of 298 brick kilns in Barisal division had taken licenses from the DoE, but 145 of those were yet to comply with rules of the DoE properly.
Sukumar Biswas, director of the DoE Barisal office, acknowledging the facts said according to the Brick Kiln Amendment Rule 2001 and Environment Conservation Act 1995 (amended in 2010), brick fields should not be installed within three kilometres of residential areas which are densely populated, reserved, commercial, part of city corporation, municipality and upazila towns, forest areas, water bodies, agricultural land and garden.
Another circular dated October 2, 2012 asked the offices concerned to strictly enforce the law to preserve the environment when it lifted a 1999 suspension order on issuing licences for setting up brick kilns.
The official said six out of 29 brick kilns in Jhalakathi, 10 out of 26 in Pirojpur, 14 out of 37 in Patuakhali, 53 out of 116 in Barisal, 39 out of 51 in Bhola and 31 out of 39 brick kilns in Barguna districts of the division are operating following the directions of DoE.
Amid manpower, transportation, budget and equipment crisis DoE operating drives in different districts of Barisal division collected fines Tk41,93,200 from 100 brick kilns in 2014 and Tk12,23,000 from 28 brick kilns in first five months of 2015, he further added.
On other hand Kaium Khan, owner of the Khan Bricks, said a huge brick kiln owners yet not succeeded to follow direction of the DoE about instaltion of improvement chimney because of financial crisis, lack of knowledge about modern technology and consciousness about environment pollution.