About half of the brick kilns in six districts of Barisal division are operating in violation of rules.

The Directorate of Environment (DoE) realised fine of Tk 54.16 lakh from 128 brick kilns during last 17 months but the attempts proved too inadequate to stop the illegal operations, sources said.

Of the 298 brick kilns in Barisal division, 230 have received license from the DoE, but 145 of those are yet to be modernised as per instructions, said Sukumar Biswas, director DoE, Barisal office.

According to the Brick Kiln Amendment Rule 2001 and Environment Conservation Act 1995 (amended in 2010), brick kilns should not be constructed around three kilometres of dwellings or crop fields, and they are not allowed to use old types of low-height (less than 120 feet) chimneys and logs for brick burning, he said.

A notice was issued on October 2, 2012, asking brick kilns to convert into modern technology-based non wood-usable ones like zigzag, Hybrid Hoffman and vertical shaft kilns, divisional DoE office sources said.

But six out of 29 brick kilns in Jhalakathi, 10 of 26 in Pirojpur, 14 of 37 in Patuakhali, 53 of 116 in Barisal, 39 of 51 in Bhola and 31 of 39 brick kilns in Barguna districts of the division are now operating in line with the directions of DoE.

Despite shortage of manpower, transportation, budget and equipment, DoE conducted drives in different districts of Barisal division and realised fine of Tk 41.93 lakh from 100 brick kilns in 2014 and Tk 12.23 lakh from 28 brick kilns in first five months of 2015, said DoE Director Sukumar Biswas.

"Many brick kiln owners are yet to follow the direction of the DoE about improvement of chimney due to financial crisis, lack of knowledge about modern technology and awareness about environment. We want proper help from the government in this regard," said Monir Hossain Rubel, owner of the Sico Bricks, and secretary of brick kiln owners association in Barisal.