Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK), the capital development authority, has demolished the two-storey site office of a housing project in Savar, Dhaka, accused of filling farmland and water bodies and operating without approval. The drive on Thursday targeted the 'Dhaka Western Valley' residential project at Bangram in Bangaon union of Savar upazila. An electricity meter was seized and signboards and dredger pipes were broken up.

Executive magistrate Sabuj Hasan led the mobile court under the supervision of RAJUK's town planning wing. The authority said the action followed complaints that land designated as farmland and water body in the detailed area plan (DAP) was being filled and the project run without permission.

According to RAJUK, farmland and low-lying land were being filled with sand, and misleading signboards were used to sell plots to the public. During the same drive, billboards of two other projects set up in breach of the rules nearby, 'Lake Island' and 'South East Housing', were also removed.

RAJUK said such operations would continue against housing projects that violate the private residential land development rules, the real estate development and management act, the environment conservation act and the natural water body conservation act. It urged the public not to buy or book land or plots in unapproved and illegal projects.

Deputy town planners Nabayan Khisa and Saiful Islam, assistant town planners Tamzid Bin Rafi, Shuvo Sarkar and Shahinur Rahman, Toukir Ahmed and other officials took part, along with representatives of the rural electricity board and members of the law enforcement agencies.

Filling farmland and wetland for housing around Dhaka is a problem decades old; regular enforcement of the DAP's farmland designations would give both peri-urban agriculture and the capital's water bodies some measure of protection.

Source: Prothom Alo