‘Take urgent steps to save Mayur river’

Environmentalists and civil rights activists in Khulna at a views exchange meeting yesterday called upon the authorities concerned to take urgent steps for saving Mayur river.

Once a lifeline for Khulna residents, the river is now on deathbed due to severe pollution from industries and rampant encroachment.

Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association (Bela) organised the meeting at a city hotel, where speakers made recommendations on measures to rejuvenate the river to its former glory.

The speakers said the river's decimation began with construction of the Khulna city protection dam in the early 1980s, while illegal encroachment of the river, unregulated fish farming, and dissipation of sewage by Khulna City Corporation's drains as well as industrial wastes into the river exacerbated the situation.

A Tk 843 crore project was initiated in September 2019 to restore Mayur river in two phases, but its future is uncertain due to lack of monitoring, they also said.

Mahfuzur Rahman Mukul, Bela's Khulna divisional coordinator, said, "Earlier, a Tk 5.78 crore project in 2014 to excavate the river hardly brought any fruitful result."

Although the KCC and district administration demolished 58 illegal structures in 2019, only a small portion of the river was reclaimed, he added.