Draft Bangladesh Water Act 2012
Call to remove scope for water commercialisation
The scope for commercialisation of water in the draft Bangladesh Water Act 2012 must be removed, said speakers at a seminar yesterday.
The draft emphasises on water distribution which could also mean commercialisation, said Rashed Khan Menon, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the education ministry, at the programme.
The seminar, “The draft Bangladesh Water Act-2012 and people's right to water”, was organised by Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD) and Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) in association with Water Rights Forum in the city's Cirdap auditorium.
People's participation is needed for the formulation of the law, said Menon.
Bela Chief Executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan, presenting a keynote on the draft, said six elements are necessary for the coordinated management and development of water resources.
They include ensuring accountability at all times, presenting a complete picture to the people, making people's participation compulsory while determining the right to water and considering industrial and commercial institutions as consumers instead of users.
Though the draft has a provision to identify areas facing water crisis, there is nothing on how to recover from such crisis. The proposal to reduce pressure on groundwater in National Water Policy 1999 is also absent in the draft, she added.
The draft proposes to fill up one or more branches of a river in the excuse of stopping river erosion or recovering rivers. But such proposals are detrimental as there are no provisions for environmental impact assessment, said Rizwana.
Moreover, the draft provides the Ministry of Water Resources the authority to formulate guidelines to identify specific areas for different kinds of economical activities related to water resources but no provision was kept to take public opinion, she said.
Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon General Secretary Dr MA Matin said the draft mentions licensing for water distribution but does not clearly mention who would get the license.
ALRD Chairperson Khushi Kabir presided over the seminar where former Water Resources Planning Organisation director general Engineer Enamul Haque and Associate Prof Dr Shahjahan Mondol of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology also spoke.
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