Government College Accused of Illegally Filling Its Pond; City Corporation Halts the Work

Government Barisal College authorities have been accused of filling in a pond in violation of the waterbody conservation law. The allegation is that Principal Professor Md Mahiuddin himself took up a plan to fill the pond and build a student hostel there.

After the incident, City Corporation officials went to the site on Sunday and stopped the work. The Department of Environment, meanwhile, said it had inspected the site, confirmed that pond filling was under way, and was issuing a notice to the principal.

The pond of Government Barisal College once covered an area of about 30 decimals. A visit to the site on Sunday showed that a considerable part of its southern side had already been filled earlier. Locals said trucks had been bringing in sand and dumping it into the pond since Saturday evening, and that one-third of the pond had been filled with sand within the night.

Locals allege that the authorities suddenly began filling the pond on Saturday with the help of college Chhatra Dal president Rafiqul Islam Tipu. They said local residents also used the pond.

However, Government Barisal College Chhatra Dal president Rafiqul Islam Tipu told reporters: "It is a ditch. We will build a hostel there named after Ashwini Kumar Dutta. The college authorities are dumping sand there." He said: "This is not the City Corporation's land, it is the college's land. Yet on Saturday night Administrator Bilkis Akter Jahan Shirin sent police and stopped the sand dumping." His question was how the City Corporation could stop the college's work.

Lincoln Bayen, Barisal divisional coordinator of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), said the Barisal College pond lies outside the college boundary. Attempts to fill it have been going on for a long time, and environmentalists have protested over it before. The pond is steeped in memories, he said, and it met local residents' water needs. Now government people themselves are filling it in violation of environmental law — an extreme breach, he said.

Md Lakitullah Shikder, head of the Barisal City Corporation's eviction branch, said: "On the administrator's instructions we went to the site on Sunday noon. We spoke with the principal and informed him of the legal obligation to keep the filling stopped. The principal said he would keep the work stopped. Otherwise, legal action will be taken."

Explaining why the pond cannot be filled, the official said it is a waterbody. Under the Natural Waterbody Conservation Act 2000, filling any pond within a metropolitan area is a punishable offence, and changing its classification is also prohibited. Violating the law carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. The principal, himself a government official, cannot break the law in this way to fill a pond with sand, he said.

Principal Dr Mahiuddin of Government Barisal College told reporters that a three-member committee formed by the college was in charge of the filling work. He also noted that Chhatra Dal's Tipu, being a local resident, is present there all the time.

Kazi Saifuddin, assistant director of the Department of Environment in Barisal district, said he sent people to the site on Sunday morning after receiving the news. They confirmed that the pond was being filled in violation of environmental law. A notice is being issued to the college authorities on the matter.

On one side, the college authorities cite the need for a hostel; on the other, the law protecting waterbodies and the demands of local residents are equally clear. The work is stopped for now, but attention is fixed on the college's reply to the Department of Environment's notice and on the legal steps that follow.