Only 32.37 per cent grabbers of the country’s river lands were evicted in over a year’s time while many grabbers reoccupied the lands few months after their eviction, according to government and independent reports.

Independent surveys conducted by green activists further shows that the district administrations, the Directorate of Land Records and Survey, the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority and three other port authorities did not demarcate the estimated 700 rivers accordingly.

Greens also criticised the failure of the agencies in evicting the grabbers permanently.

Due to the combined pressure by the High Court division, the press, civil society and donors, the government took a number of steps to demarcate the river boundaries and evict occupiers but these were just eyewash and yielded little results even though a huge amount of public money had been spent, they argued.

‘Rivers have not been demarcated properly to give advantage to the powerful grabbers like politicians and businesses, flouting laws and several Appellate and High Court Division verdicts,’ Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan general secretary Sharif Jamil said.

Even after the BIWTA’s 15-month eviction drives in five Dhaka rivers, spending over Tk 1.5 crore, he said, adding, ‘A ruling party lawmaker, truck owners and several other powerful people recently reoccupied the land of the Buriganga and the Turag.’

No grabbers of the Meghna were evicted by any agency though for this very reason donors refused to fund Dhaka WASA’s Tk 8,151 crore Gandharbpur water treatment plant, he said.