Investigation Ordered into the Destruction of Lalmai Hills

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, adviser for Environment and Water Resources.

Dhaka, 27 January: Infrastructure development under the ‘Further Development’ project of Cumilla University has caused significant environmental and biodiversity damage by cutting through the historically and archaeologically significant Lalmai Hills.

To address this, a letter signed by Dil Afroze Begum, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, requested the Senior Secretary of the Secondary and Higher Education Division to form an inter-ministerial investigation committee, including the Planning Commission, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and other relevant ministries, to identify responsibilities and take necessary actions.

The project, approved in a 2018 ECNEC meeting, explicitly required that infrastructure designs avoid hill cutting. The Department of Environment also stipulated that no activity under the project should harm the environment or biodiversity.

However, these conditions were violated as hills were cut for infrastructure development without obtaining any environmental clearance. A field visit by the Ministry of Environment confirmed this violation.

Such actions by a higher education institution like Cumilla University set a harmful precedent and send a negative message about development at the cost of environmental degradation. – PID Handout