KCC Water Project
DoE certificate stayed for 10 days
The High Court yesterday stayed for 10 days the effectiveness of the environmental certificate issued by the Department of Environment (DoE) for implementation of a water supply project of Khulna City Corporation (KCC).
In response to a writ petition, the court also issued a rule upon the government to explain in 10 days why the DoE's decision to issue the certificate for Phultala Water Supply Project of KCC should not be declared illegal.
The HC bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik and Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim also fixed February 19 for hearing the rule.
Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers' Association (Bela) filed the writ petition on February 6 as a public interest litigation stating that the DoE has given the environmental certificate to KCC in May last year for running the water project on the basis of an “improper” environmental impact assessment (EIA) report.
The KCC had get the EIA report prepared by the science and environment department of Khulna University in 2009 which did not assess the environmental impact of lifting 90 lakh gallons of ground water every day under the project, the petitioner said.
According to the petition, the KCC authorities in 2004 started the project titled "The Khulna City Interim Water Supply Project" to supply 90 lakh gallons of water per day to the city dwellers by lifting water through 40 deep tubewells in Phultala area.
Advocate AM Aminuddin and Advocate Iqbal Kabir Lytton appeared for the petitioner, while Deputy Attorney General ABM Altaf Hossain represented the government.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments