The Ramadia canal in Gopalganj is shrinking day by day as a vested interested group has grabbed a lion’s portion of the canal and built houses and business establishments on it.
Locals said the grabbers not only had built houses on the water body and business establishments but also rent those out.
In many places, the encroachers have also built concrete buildings and started claiming it is part of their own properties. .
It is also alleged that the grabbers in collaboration with fraudulent officials of Water Development Board (WDB) have made documents in a bid to grab some portion of the water body permanently.
Kumaresh Chandra Sarker, engineer of the WDB, told the Dhaka Tribune that the Water Development Board had 36.39 acres of land in Gopalganj sadar upazila, in which 26.28 acres had been grabbed by the vested interested group.
He said market price of per decimal of land was from Tk2 lakh to Tk6 lakh.
These lands had been acquired during the British period to increase width of the land.
As the land remained barren for years, the local influential have taken illegal occupation of it.
“We are going to take measures to reclaim the land soon,” he added.
A resident of Sadar upazila, who preferred to be unnamed, told the Dhaka Tribune that the local influential and their relatives had grabbed a portion of the canal at Ramadia bazar.
“They also built houses on the middle of the canal,” he said.
Not only that, they also built houses on the canal at Dhirail village, adjacent to Ramadia kitchen market.
Abu Taleb Mia, who has been accused of grabbing WDB land, said he had built houses on the canal after taking permission from the authority concerned.
Md Baten Mia said he had built buildings on the water body after taking verbal permission from the WDB.
“Like me, many people have built makeshift houses as well as concrete establishments on the canal,” he said.
But he acknowledged that he did not take permission from the Department of Environment, comply with building code and conduct feasibility study while making the establishments.
Registrar of land office Rafiqul Islam told the Dhaka Tribune that recently they had prevented some people from making buildings on the bank of a pond.
Although land of WDB is not our property, we refrained people from building establishments on the water bodies as those are properties of the government, he said.
General Secretary of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon said according the water body preservation act water bodies, including lake, canal and pond, are prohibited. If anyone wants to fill up water bodies he has to take permission from the authorities concerned, he said.
“Fill up of water body can cause grave concern for ecological balance,” he said.
Communist Party Central leader Dr Asit Baran Ray said these types of encroachment are not only causing ecological imbalance, but also depriving the government of huge taxes.
Executive Engineer of Gopalganj Water Development Board said, “We will take measures to reclaim our property, Engineer Kumaresh Chandra Sarker is working in this regard.”
