News Report Too long have the tanners taken to travel out of the heart of the capital city to suburban Savar with their factories blamed for rot of the area and the river close by. The pollution of the city environs around Hazaribagh and the river Buriganga nearby has been prolonged by such willful antipathy, protesters say. Not that the tannery owners and the hapless workers do not know that they, too, are not being spared from the poison their jerrybuilt factories is spewing into the densely-populated neighbourhood and the life-giving waters of the Buriganga. Why then such insensate dithering? The motive may be to earn some easy money doing business even in the filths at a high cost of human health and hygiene. The untreated tannery trashes are the worst among the pollutants that have rung the death knell of the Buriganga and other rivers around the metropolis. The rivers readily should find an analogy with the Thames beside London once rotting in the wake of the Industrial Revolution which created a craze for hot money in the nascent capitalists of the time. The Thames’ woes have been embodied in hate of wanton rapacity of the tycoons in famous English literary works. In Bangladesh, the rot of rivers is a virtual synonym for an outcry of greens and stakeholders of all classes. Hardly are there any other such singly notorious polluters as Hazaribagh tanneries and chemical factories discharging untreated wastes into the river that have witnessed and withstood so much of protest by green campaigners. Academics, artists, writers, journalists joined hands with the greens and civil-society members in staging demonstrations against such reckless assault on the environment of a capital city where names of most localities are after gardens in once-idyllic setting. All this has gone into the government planning of relocation of the tanneries to a designated hub in Savar area-though, again, not far away from the city fringes. Experts are of the opinion that the leather city could be further away into any backwoods. Anyway, no more fuss-mind you, this is a crossroads in human history where development and clean environment are synonymous in order to tide the globe over impending natural catastrophes. Amid mid-January wintry weather, people of Rajshahi area were surprised to see two days of rain coupled with storms. Around the same time, a fearful blizzard wrought havoc on parts of the United States-rated as the most developed and worst polluter as a consequence of hedonist pursuit of development sans climate concerns. These are nothing supernatural-all are nature’s revenge for the assault on it, knowingly or unknowingly. Good sense appears to be prevailing on the development planners, especially by the frightening sights of weather queen La Nina and king El Nino that bring in floods and storms and droughts and destruction. SDGs come out from this belated realization as a binding universal deal to save the planet and save humanity from the wrath of nature. And Bangladesh, as a most vulnerable country, is a prominent party to it. A breach of the rules set in the 17 objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted at a global summit at the UN headquarters and the terms of the climate deal struck at the UN-sponsored climate summit in Paris would not only accentuate its vulnerability but also dim chances of drawling dollars from a global compensation fund. The fund is to be built mostly on penalty for the mass polluters-the most developed nations and, for that matter, worst contributors to ozone destruction in the atmosphere with excessive carbon dioxide emissions. The receivers do have their own obligations, too. After all, the Hazaribagh site of factories is declared fifth most polluted place in the world by two reputed research organizations. Such a grim prelude allows no more ‘foot dragging’ by either of the sides-the polluters and preventers in government authority, particularly the executing agencies-in the matter of planned relocation of the tanneries to the designated Savar Leather Industrial City. The latest extended timeline is up to March 01 and it must not fail on any excuse. Earlier on January 9, Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu had asked the tanners to move to Savar within 72 hours. However, following negotiations with the owners, the ministry gave them until the first of March. A month is left, but spot reports say not a single factory building at the new site is yet ready for relocation by then. The central effluent treatment plant (CETP), the most essential component of the project, is not ready either. A little over 50 percent work of the plant had been completed towards the end of January. Out of around 150 factories so far allotted plots, maximum 25-30 might be able to start operations at the tannery industrial estate in two months, according to project officials. The move to relocate tanneries to Savar was made 13 years back to save the old Dhaka area from serious pollution. But the leather city could not be completed in time as the tanners never showed any real interest in relocating their factories there. Legal tangles for years were also partly to blame. Only in April 2013, the design for the tannery site in Savar was approved. Since then, Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) had written to owners at least 30 times to complete construction of their factories and move there, but to no effect, reports say. Now the government is promise-bound to get it done in the time-bound manner within the set period. The CETP must be ready by the deadline-true to the minister’s ultimatums. “I’ve told them if they don’t relocate by March 1, electricity connections at Hazaribagh factories will be snapped. And it’s going to happen,” the minister was quoted as saying about his resolve. Any backtracking again could encourage them and more defiant parties of polluters or lawbreakers, observers believe. So, after the latest deadline is over, the government should act decisively by at least suspending operations of the errant ones until their relation.
