Staff Correspondent

The interim government has decided not to issue environmental clearance certificates that allow construction of industrial units inside the Bhawal National Park, which lies north of Dhaka, where some factories have already been built flouting existing laws.

The council of advisers, however, remained undecided at its weekly meeting over whether it would bring the existing industries inside the park under legal cover or have them demolished, as they were built encroaching forest land by a handful of influential people over the past years, according to an official.

'The government asked the authorities concerned to further examine the options to settle the matter as it has already become very complicated,' Syed Fahim Munaim, the spokesman to the government told reporters after the weekly cabinet meet at the Chief Adviser's Office on Monday.

Presided over by the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, the meeting also approved an amendment to the 1983 ordinance that created Grameen Bank, allowing the bank to expand its micro-credit schemes to urban areas.

The council sent back for further examination a proposed amendment to the government's rules of business.

The meeting attended by eight advisers and five special assistants to the chief adviser as well as relevant officials, reportedly discussed the current socio-economic conditions prevailing in the country.

The meeting was informed that an inter-ministerial meeting had imposed a ban on construction of any sort of structure or industrial units on eight mouzas of the Bhawal national park in 1990.

The government subsequently followed it up with a circular to this effect in 1999 under environment law, the gazette notification for which was published in 2006. Taking advantage of the delayed enforcement of the government decision, a number of influential people illegally occupied the government land and constructed factories, which are posing a serious threat to the forest.

The government had earlier formed a committee headed by the director general of the department of environment, and the chief conservator of forests to determine the number of illegal installations in the national park.

The committee had recommended that the government should recover the grabbed land by evicting the occupiers. Meanwhile, an official said, a group of businessmen tried to convince the government that they have bought the land from private owners and constructed buildings as per the law.

They said these industries employ many workers as well, and it would not be wise to evict those industrial units from the Bhawal park areas.

The industrial units now want to obtain environment clearance certificates from the department of environment. In this context the government asked the officials concerned to see how they could resolve the matter.

A parliamentary committee report in 2004 revealed that most of the 25,000 acres land, donated to the forest department by the Bhawal Raja and Dhaka's Nawab family who were the original owners, have been sold or leased out by a section of unscrupulous forest department officials.

The report said that the land had illegally been grabbed by some real estate developers and individuals in the name various industrial units with the help of government officials of Dhaka and Gazipur districts.

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