Court Correspondent :
The High Court on Tuesday directed the government to introduce alert system for issuing urgent cautionary message in order to save people from unhygienic, severe unhygienic and dangerous air pollution.
The apex court also asked the authorities of the government to fix time-bound action plan in order to identify the main sources of air pollution and activities and to curb the pollution and submit a compliance report to this effect before the court.
The High Court bench consisting of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Md Atabullah issued the directives following a petition filed by rights organization Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) seeking necessary orders to implement the directives issued by another bench of the apex court on February 15 of 2022 on this issue.
According to the petition, the officials concerned have not issued any cautionary message under the relevant rules to save people though the air pollution in Dhaka was unhygienic, severe unhygienic and dangerous in most of days in last week of December, last year and in January this year.
Following a writ petition filed by BELA, the High Court on February 15, 2022 directed the officials to identify the sources of major air pollution in the country, submit a report on government’s action plan to curb the pollution and its implementation and to identify and make a list of the activities, which are mainly responsible for air pollution.
The apex court asked the authorities concerned to prepare a time-bound mitigation plan for setting up air quality monitoring system in appropriate places and introduce appropriate system to save people from the exposure to unhealthy air.
Besides, the High Court issued a rule mentioning the responsibilities to explain as to why their failure to mitigate air pollution and to save public health should not be declared illegal and against the public interest and why they should not be directed to control and improve the air pollution.
Secretaries concerned of the ministries of cabinet division; Local Government and Rural Development; Forest, Environment and Climate Change; Industries; Housing and Public Works; Health and Family Planning; Road, Transport and Bridges; and finance and mayors of Dhaka north and south city corporations; director general of department of environment; Chairman of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha; Chief Engineer of Roads and Highways Department; Chairman of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and Director (Monitoring and Enforcement) of Directorate of Environment have been made respondents to the directives and rule.
Lawyer Hasanul Banna appeared for BELA while Assistant Attorney General Md Selim Azad represented the state during hearing of the petition on Tuesday.
