Illegal encroachment has kept 145 acres of land of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in the capital’s Mohakhali locked-up for years.
There are allegations that a vested group, which includes ruling party leaders, has been earning millions of takas for years by putting up slum shanties, permanent and temporary houses, shops and business houses on government land and renting them out to unauthorised people.
Thousands of people live in these settlements and use utilities like water, gas and electricity illegally from various government organisations, without paying bills.
A number of officials from the Ministry of Health and DGHS told the Dhaka Tribune that the matter is an open secret. The officials claim the illegal business has been going on for decades and that none of the previous governments taken steps to remedy the situation. The official also stated that after each change of government, the land grabbers changed in accordance with political affiliation.
Investigations by the Dhaka Tribune revealed that the Ministry of Public Administration issued an order in September 2009, giving seven senior secretaries of the Ministry of Health magistracy power to run an eviction drive from the area known as the Mohakali Health Zone. However, the eviction drive has never happened.
According to the Ministry of Health, only 34.5 acres of land out of the total 145 remain free from illegal settlement. In a recent assessment by the Ministry of Land, the illegally settled lands were valued at nearly Tk35bn. Sources said the real price of these lands could be three or four times higher.
Further investigation revealed that unscrupulous officials and employees of the health department have constructed hundreds of illegal structures on government land citing a lack of employee housing.
Local residents report drug rackets based out of these slums. According to them, not only do the rackets deal in local liquor, marijuana, phensidyl, opium and yaba, but also control the various supply sources for the hospitals including the supply of equipment, medicine, food, linen, constructions for new buildings and ambulance services.
Locals also said criminals often take refuge in the slums of the Mohakhali Health Zone because they are backed by influential political leaders. A number of intelligence agencies have in the past reported to the government on these issues.
Last year, a central committee member of the Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA), Dr Narayan Chandra Dutta Nitai was murdered in his residence adjacent to the seven-storey slum in Mohakhali. In their depositions, the accused said they went inside Dr Nitai’s residence by climbing over the boundary wall of the slum.
The government’s plans to construct a new building for the Cancer Institute Hospital in the Mohakhali Health Zone have been put on hold because the grabbers, with strong political backing, refuse to let go of the land.
Seeking anonymity, a number of health sector policymakers told the Dhaka Tribune that building new structures to expanding the country’s healthcare facilities is absolutely mandatory.
The sources added that a number of land dispute litigations are ongoing at various courts and that the grabbers, who have illegal funding, can afford top lawyers to keep these cases alive for years. They keep these lands under their possession using fake documents.
Professor Dr Rashid E Mahbub, a former BMA president and the leader of a citizen health rights movement, said Ayub Khan allotted the area during the Pakistan period to develop as a health zone.
The Director General of the DGHS, Professor Dr Khondaker Md Shefyetullah hoped that the authorities would start an eviction drive very soon.
