A procession and a human chain were organised in the city on Thursday demanding the cancellation of the projects to set a coal-fired thermal power plant at Ramapl in Bagerhat and the ship-breaking yard at Patharghata in Bagruna.Samajtantrik Chhatra Front and Bigyan Manch Andolan jointly organised the programmes. The procession was brought from Amrita Lal Dey College which ended at Ashwini Kumar Hall. Later, a human chain was formed in front of Ashwini Kumar Hall.
Engineer Imran Habib Rumman, Dr Manisha Chakraborty, Pradipta Saha, Badruddoza Saikat and Bidhuvushan Nath, among others, addressed the programmes with Riazul Huq Khan, joint convener of Bigyan Manch Andolan, in the chair.
Speakers said the proposed 1320MW power plant at Rampal in Bagerhat district under the joint venture Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited lies only nine kilometres off the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, while the Patharghta coast is also near the forest.
Both the projects would result in huge depletion of arable land in the areas and affect the ecology of the Sundarbans, also a world heritage site, and the coastal belt of the country’s southern part, they said.
They said the power plant and the ship-breaking yard projects would destroy the ingredients of the soil that support the lives of millions of inhabitants of a vast region, increase the concentration of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in the air.
Those projects will seriously affect the biodiversity, ecology, water management, flora and fauna of the Sundarbans and the coastal areas, the speakers said. – UNB
