Government timber trees planted along a road have allegedly been sold out at a nominal price at Faridganj upazila in Chandpur.
The trees – 32 Mehogony and 32 Rain trees – would be around Tk9 lakh but they were sold just for Tk73000, locals said.
They said local ruling party men had applied to the office of the Local Government and Engineering Department (LGED) to buy and cut down the trees along Faridganj-Brahmapara GCC Road labeling some of them as risky and some others as dead.
The trees were however neither risky or dead or it was not necessary to cut them down at all, they said, reasoning that they were not getting in the way of constructing any road or there was no structure along the road that they might be risky.
Besides, there were no trees that were even about to die that they should be cut down beforehand, they continued.
The locals also alleged that the trees were even sold at such an auction that was arranged only for the ruling party men because it was not known to others who could have taken part in the auction.
Faridganj’s No 15 Union Parishad Chairman Billal Hossain Bhuiyan partly echoed the locals and said the trees had been sold without any acceptable reason.
The trees were sold in auction to several groups.
Of them, Group No 9 auctioneer and Upazila Swechchhasebak League General Secretary Mahfuz Gazi got three trees in the auction for Tk9400, which he later sold for Tk90000.
Group No 4 auctioneer Momin Patoari, a local Union Parishad Awami League leader, was auctioned three trees for Tk24100, which timber traders now wanted to buy for Tk1.5 lakh.
Group No 3 auctioneer Saiful Islam, a Jatiya Party leader, got three trees in the auction for Tk20100, which he later sold for Tk60000.
In case of auctioning government trees, their size and price should be set by the forest department, as Forest Officer Shafiqul Amin Apel said yesterday. He alleged that they had no idea of the auction of 32 trees in the upazila.
When Upazila LGED Engineer Ziaul Islam Majumder was asked about this all, he said all the rules had been followed in the auction. Some people might have been alleging that there had been irregularities in the auction only because they had failed to get the trees for free.
“Those who got the trees in the auction should benefit a little from selling them. It is normal,” he opined.
Upazila Nirbahi Officer Joynal Abdin said: “The trees have been auctioned before I am posted here. It will be investigated if it does require so.”