Over 0.26m acres forest land under illegal occupation: Saber

Environment, Forest and Climate Change Affairs Minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury on Tuesday said over 0.26 million acres of land of the forest department is under illegal occupation.

The minister said that of the total grabbed land, a total of 30,162 acres has been recovered from the hands of grabbers as of last May.

The environment minister said this in Parliament replying to a query from the ruling Awami League MP elected from Chattogram M Abdul Latif.

He said that the eviction proposal will be sent for the recovery of 5,000 acres of occupied forest land under a 100 working days priority action plan.

Moreover, activities have been intensified to recover the remaining encroached forest lands.

In response to a query from Independent MP elected from Kishoreganj Suhrab Uddin, the environment minister said that there are a total of 6,876 brick kilns across the country.

From January to June, a total of 170 mobile courts across the country conducted operations against 611 illegal brick kilns, collected a fine of Tk 150.8 million and demolished 250 brick kilns, he added.

The Environment Minister said that the government has set a target of using eco-friendly blocks as an alternative to bricks in all government construction, repair and renovation works except for roads and highways in order to prevent air pollution and reduce soil use of agricultural land.

In this case, the programme of increasing the production and use of blocks is being implemented with the help of the local government engineering department, public works department and other related departments or organisations and construction-related partners.

In response to the question of the ruling Awami League MP elected from Bhola Nurunnabi Chowdhury, Agriculture Minister Abdus Shahid said that in the financial year 2008-09, some 1,96,071 tonnes of pulses were produced in Bangladesh.

In the financial year 2022-23 it increased five times and stood and 10,80,47 tonnes, he added.