Roundup: Bangladesh cuts off utility supply to toxic tanneries in Dhaka

Bangladesh's Department of Environment has started to cut off utility supply to the toxic tanneries in Dhaka for their failure to shift factories to a new leather processing cluster in Savar on the outskirts of the capital city.

Lines had been cut to at least 30 tanneries in Dhaka's Hazaribagh area on Saturday in line with a recent court order, an official from the department told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

He said the department will be successful in cutting off all utility connections within Sunday.

"We're just obeying the court order," said the official.

Bangladesh's Supreme Court on March 30 ordered the tanneries to finish relocating their Hazaribagh operations before April 6.

A High Court Division bench of Bangladesh last month ordered some 154 toxic Hazaribagh tanneries to shut down.

According to the court ruling, the tanneries will remain shut down until they are shifted from Hazaribagh to a new cluster in Savar.

The High Court Division bench in its March 6 order also instructed relevant government authorities to shut down utility supply including gas line, power and water lines of the environment-damaging tanneries.

Despite repeated orders to relocate tanneries to the leather industrial zone at Savar, most tanneries have not moved yet.

As of Saturday, some 50 factories have reportedly been shifted to the new environment-friendly leather industrial zone in Savar.

Bangladesh environmentalists have campaigned against slow relocation processes and gone for legal battle.

In June last year, Bangladesh's High Court ordered the tanneries to pay 50,000 taka each to the national exchequer a day in compensation for polluting the environment until they shift to Savar.

The tanneries later moved the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the order. The amount was then revised to 10,000 taka.

In 2001, Bangladesh's High Court ordered these tanneries to relocate to Savar but the order was not executed.

On June 23, 2009, the court once again ordered the relocation to be completed within Feb. 24, 2010.

The relocation orders suffered repeated setbacks as tanners said that they are yet to install rawhide processing facilities at the Savar park.

Until recently, Hazaribagh was home to 95 percent of Bangladesh's leather tanneries while none of them has an effluent treatment plant as required by the country's environmental and labor law.

Dhaka's Hazaribagh residents who often complain of skin diseases and respiratory illnesses have been living in one of the world's most contaminated urban environments.

The workers of the tanneries also suffer from health problems as they work with extremely dangerous chemicals with little protective equipment.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau of Bangladesh, earnings from export of leather and leather products in Fiscal Year 2015-16 grew 15.31 percent to 1,160.95 million U.S. dollars. (1 Bangladeshi taka = 0.013 U.S. dollar) Endit