Karnaphuli River being choked

Big cities thrive on the banks of great rivers. For Chittagong it is the Karnaphuli River. Yet over the nearly two and half decades, we have stood as silent spectators to its gradual degradation as greed paved the way for unbridled encroachment. The Department of Environment (DoE), the regulatory authority has also stood on the sidelines in the face of powerful vested interests and not taken effective steps to protect it. It is shocking to find that the river's width has shrunk from 870meters in 1990 to a mere 600meters in the span of two decades as manmade illegal structures propped up on its banks and land grabbers opted for filling up the river over this period. 

The ecological balance of the river has suffered immense damage as untreated industrial effluent, about 1,400 tons of solid and liquid waste of some 6million residents have been dumped indiscriminately into the waters of Karnaphuli on a daily basis through various canals. Yet authorities work at a sedate pace to set up a central effluent plant for the city's industrial belt. We are informed by a report published in this paper that a master plan on sewage treatment will be finalised by 2017. Hence, it is not clear precisely when the actual plant will go into operation.

In the meantime, Karnaphuli continues to be polluted and encroached upon. The DoE operates under severe constraints of resources including lack of manpower and enforcement authority. The Karnaphuli is Chittagong city's bloodline and it is high time for the government to wake up to realities on the ground and take a hard line against polluters and land grabbers