The High Court (HC) on Wednesday summoned the authorities concerned including Narayanganj’s deputy commissioner (DC) to appear before it in person on May 31 for not abiding by the directives to control air pollution.
The Department of Environment’s Director (enforcement) and its Deputy Director of Narayanganj were also summoned in this regard.

An HC bench of Justice KM Kamrul Kader and Justice Mohammad Showkat Ali passed the order after hearing a petition.

The court also asked to explain as to why effective measures were not taken to implement a 9-point directive given by the HC to control air pollution.

Lawyer Manzill Murshid stood for the petition while Amatul Karim represented the Department of Environment.

Manzil said the nine-point directives including removing illegal brick kilns in all five districts surrounding Dhaka were given to combat air pollution earlier, but those directives were ignored by the administration.

Also, Narayanganj’s DoE was not getting cooperation from the authorities concerned to evict illegal brick kilns, he said.

After knowing the matter, the HC on Wednesday summoned them to appear before the court on May 31 when they have to explain why they have failed.

In 2020, the HC gave the nine-point directive to control the air pollution.

The directives include:

• Ensuring the use of covers on trucks or other vehicles that transport sand or soil in the capital, Dhaka.

• Contractors must cover the construction sites

• Taking steps to sprinkle water on Dhaka roads

• Ensuring complete road construction or excavation work or carpeting complying with laws, rules and terms and conditions of the agreement.

• To seize those vehicles involved in emitting black smoke.

• To fix the economic life of vehicles plying on roads as per the Road Transport Act 2018 and to impose ban on movement of unfit vehicles.

• To shut down the illegal brick fields which are operating without licence and submit a report within two months.

• Stop burning of tyres and recycling of vehicles’ batteries without approval from the DoE.

• Taking steps to ensure that all the market owners or shopkeepers keep their garbage in bags and the city corporations were asked to remove those after the shops or markets are closed.

On January 31 this year, the HC wanted to know the steps taken to prevent air pollution in Dhaka and asked the authorities concerned including the DoE to inform about it on February 5.

As per the order, the DoE submitted a report to the court on February 26 and a day after the HC also ordered the DoE’s DG to submit a report after demolishing all illegal brick kilns in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Munshiganj, Manikganj and Gazipur.

There was a schedule of hearing regarding the headway of submission of the report by the DG on Wednesday.