Cabinet for elevated roads in haors
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday asked agencies concerned to construct elevated roads instead of roads in haor areas to ensure the free flow of water during floods.
She also ordered the construction of bridges on the roads and highways at a distance of every half a kilometre in haor areas to prevent water stagnation in those areas of Sylhet, Sunamganj, Netrakona and Kishoreganj.
The prime minister gave the instructions while presiding over the weekly cabinet meeting at her Tejgaon office in the city.
‘The cabinet has given clear instruction to construct elevated roads in haor areas. No new project will be taken to build roads there. Moreover, there will be a bridge at a distance of half a kilometre on roads and highways in the haor regions,’ cabinet secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam told a press briefing at the secretariat after the cabinet meeting.
The cabinet also asked the authorities concerned to see whether the Aushtagram-Mithamain Haor road was causing water stagnation and adversely affecting the haor belts, Anwarul said.
Planning minister MA Mannan told the cabinet that the agencies working in haors should assess whether the development projects being implemented there were fruitful, according to the cabinet secretary.
The meeting was informed that standing crops on 5,000 hectares of haor land out of 2.23 lakh hectares were damaged by the recent flash flood in Sunamganj and Sylhet in the first week of April.
The onrush of water from upstream breached flood protection embankments at many places through which water continued gushing into boro fields in the region, which accounts for a fifth of the country’s overall output of boro, the main staple.
Monday’s cabinet meeting also asked the housing and public works ministry and the Local Government Division to report on indiscriminate construction of factories across the country and come up with recommendations in three months to streamline those and check pollution, the cabinet secretary said.
The cabinet approved in principle the draft of the Production, Storage, Movement, Transportation, Supply, Distribution and Marketing of Foodgrains (Prevention of Prejudicial Activity) Bill, 2022 stipulating provisions of punishments for offences in any stage of the food supply chain.
The food ministry placed the draft seeking the cabinet’s approval.
Anwarul said that if anyone committed an offence under the proposed law, the person would be punished with maximum five-year jail and Tk 10 lakh in fine.
He said that the proposed law was brought by merging two existing laws—Foodgrains Supply (Prevention of Prejudicial Activity) Ordinance, 1979 and the Food (Special Courts) Act, 1956—to prevent offences in the supply chain and ensure quality food items for the people.
Besides, the draft of the Attia Forest (Protection) Bill, 2022 was placed again in the meeting for the final approval. But the cabinet returned the bill directing the authorities concerned to bring it again after conducting a digital survey over its lands.
The meeting was informed that it would take four to five months to complete the survey, Anwarul said, adding that the survey was necessary to avoid complexities in future as some government establishments like the police station, upazila headquarters and hospital were set up in the forest lands in Tangail changing the nature of the land.
Anwarul said that the land comprising some 59,000 acres in Tangail and Dhaka districts was first declared as a reserved forest through a law in 1928. Since the law lost its relevance, the Attia Forest (Protection) Ordinance, 1982 was promulgated during the military regime, he mentioned.
The Cabinet Division placed the quarterly report relating to the implementation of the cabinet decisions.
The report showed that 89 per cent of the cabinet decisions taken from January 2019 to March 2022 was implemented so far.
News Courtesy:
https://www.newagebd.net/article/168451/cabinet-for-elevated-roads-in-haors
