Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan has asked the authorities concerned to remove the illegal structures from both the sides of the Kallyanpur ‘K’ khal in the capital within a week.
Shipping minister and also the chief of the taskforce for recovering the rivers, has made the direction during his sudden visit to the khal area on Saturday.
Jahangir Alam Khan, shipping ministry’s public relation officer, told the Dhaka Tribune that the minister has expressed dissatisfaction seeing the illegal structures on both sides of the khal.
The khal, located near the National Institute of Traumatology & Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR at Shyamoly, had been recovered earlier from the illegal occupants.
A section of grabbers, however, captured both sides of the Khal, one of the most important point of passing out sewerage water from the capital, again and built structures due to lack of monitoring by authorities.
Expressing his concern for illegal capture of the khals, Shajahan Khan said: “The government has recovered some of the khals in Dhaka City in its previous tenure and constructed walk-ways in both sides of the khals. As a result, water logging and environment pollution were reduced.”
“A section of illegal grabbers, however, occupied those again due to lack of monitoring by the concerned authorities and shortage of money. The government will ensure arrangement of adequate funds to protect those from grabbers to make the city liveable,” he added.
He said: “The WASA authority has signed an agreement with the Netherlands government to make those khals usable by dredging and protecting the banks of the khals. The construction works would be starting soon. The water logging and environment pollution problems would be eliminated after finishing the works.”
He also informed the media that the government found the existence of only 23 khals out of total 46 in Dhaka city. The rest of the khals were filled up by illegal occupants or owners.
The government built walkways on both sides of 13 khals, evicting the occupants and illegal structures and doing some maintenance work.
A portion of Kallyanpur ‘K’ khals was also dredged and maintained while Ramchandrapur khal was also dredged and maintained. The maintenance work of Shuvadda khal will be starting soon, he said.
Additional Secretary of the Shipping Ministry Md Alauddin, Joint Secretary Sohrab Hossain Sheikh and high officials of Dhaka WASA and Dhaka North City Corporation
