2024-07-03 22:20:21
From January 25 to June 24 of this year, operations against 611 illegal brick kilns were conducted through 170 mobile courts across the country in five months. Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Saber Hossain said a fine of Tk 15.08 crore has been collected in the raid.
Tuesday (July 2) in the session of the National Parliament. The minister gave this information in response to Sohrab Uddin’s written question. Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury presided over the session.
Saber Hossain Chowdhury said, currently there are a total of 6,876 brick kilns across the country. In order to prevent environmental pollution, the Department of Environment is conducting regular mobile courts, enforcement operations and filing regular cases to stop illegal brick kilns. A 100-day priority action plan has been adopted by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change immediately after the current government assumed office, which includes various activities to control pollution including taking measures against illegal brick kilns to protect the environment. Under the action plan, a target of conducting operations against at least 500 air polluting illegal brick kilns was set within 100 working days. To implement the action plan, the nationwide crash program has been started by the Department of Environment from January 25 this year.
The minister said that under this program till June 24, a total of 170 mobile courts across the country conducted operations against 611 illegal brick kilns and collected a fine of 15.08 million taka. 250 brick kilns were demolished in the operation.
The Environment Minister said that in light of the ‘Brick Preparation and Kiln Installation (Regulation) Act, 2013 (Amended 2019)’, the government has adopted an environment-friendly alternative to bricks in all government construction, repair and renovation works, except for roads and highways, in order to prevent air pollution and gradually reduce the use of soil on agricultural land. Block usage targets are set. In this case, the activities of increasing the production and use of blocks are being implemented with the help of local government engineering department, public works department and other related departments or organizations and construction related partners. In order to increase the production and consumption of blocks, the incentive program has been taken through the Bangladesh Bank through the Bangladesh Environmental sustainability and Transformation project, BEST (Bangladesh Environmental sustainability and Transformation project, BEST) project with the help of the World Bank through low interest loans.
Apart from this, the minister also said that the monitoring by the government has been strengthened to prevent all the roads of the country from being damaged due to the pressure of the trucks carrying soil across the country.