836 acres of forest land recovered

At least 836 acres of forest land that was illegally occupied by different people have been recovered so far, the environment, forests and climate change affairs ministry told a parliamentary standing committee meeting yesterday.

The meeting of the parliamentary watchdog on the ministry was held at Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, with ruling Awami League MP and chief of the committee Saber Hossain Chowdhury in the chair.

Earlier in a meeting of the committee held in February, it was said that a total of 1,60,566 people had been occupying over 2.56 lakh acres of forest land across the country. Houses, industrial factories and other establishments were built on the occupied forest land. Bangladesh has a total of 46.47 lakh acres of forest land in the country.  The parliamentary committee at its meeting in February had recommended that the ministry take all-out measure to evict grabbers from illegally-occupied forest land. The meeting recommended that responsibilities assigned to the concerned officials of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change and lawyers be fulfilled with more accountability and responsibility for the interest of the country. Minister of Forest and Climate Change Shahab Uddin, Deputy Minister Habibun Nahar, members of the committee--Nazim Uddin Ahmed, Tanvir Shakil Joy, Zafar Alam, Rezaul Karim, Khodeja Nasrin Akhter Hossain and Shaheen Chakladar took part in the meeting.