The National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, and several other green groups started their four-day mass procession towards Rampal of the Sundarbans yesterday morning demanding that the coal-based power projects be scrapped immediately.
Thousands of activists of different left-leaning parties, mainly of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD), Workers Party and Ganosanghati Andolon joined the event with a convoy of buses.
The organisers said that the march would reach Khulna today and finally the Sundarbans on Sunday.
The national committee earlier observed a long march from Dhaka to Rampal in September 2013, just a month before the prime minister inaugurated construction of the 1320MW coal-based power plant beside the mangrove forest.
Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Ltd (BIFPCL), a joint venture of PDB and NTPC of India, is developing the Maitree Super Thermal Power Project at Rampal which will use imported coal.
The plant would adopt super critical technology. India’s state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd or BHEL has won the deal to build the plant. On the other hand, local firm Orion Group is building a 566MW power plant in Rampal area.
“The Rampal power plant is a project of betrayal ... it is a destructive project. We will resist implementation of the project through a united movement,” said Prof Anu Muhammad, member secretary of the national committee, while addressing a rally prior to launching of the procession in front of the National Press Club.
He alleged that the government was implementing the Rampal power project ignoring opinion of the local and international experts only to serve the interests of the Indian profit-monger businessmen.
National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC), one of the India’s largest power utilities, wants to build the project by convincing the Bangladesh government. The NTPC had failed to build a similar project in India due to strong protests from the citizens, said Prof Anu, a teacher of Jahangirnagar University.
“The Sundarbans has been serving us as a protective fence from natural disasters. It is the habitation of the whole southern region of the country. So, we cannot allow any move to destroy this World Heritage Site.
“More than one million people’s livelihood depends on the Sundarbans while the forest is protecting more than 40 million people from natural disasters,” he said.
He said that the objective of the long march programme was to create mass awareness against the government’s move and save the Sundarbans.
The protesters also demanded enactment of a law in order to prevent the export of mineral resources, full implementation of the 2006 Phulbari Agreement and a ban on lifting coal in open mining method.
BSD leaders Khalequzzaman and Bazlur Rashid Firoz, CPB leader Ruhin Hossain Prince and Dhaka University teacher Ahmed Kamal were also present at the rally.