Bangladesh moves to free 138,613 acres of reserved forestland from encroachment

The government is going to send notices to encroachers as it moves to free 138,613 acres of reserved forestland.

The parliamentary standing committee on the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change discussed the issue on Sunday.

The committee asked the ministry to issue the eviction notices by Jan 30, 2021 after making a list of the encroachers within Dec 20 this year.

The ministry will also have to submit a list of the encroachers who have occupied forestlands that are not reserved by Jan 31.

Nearly 208,500 acres out of over 4.6 million acres of forestland of different categories currently are illegally occupied by 88,215 individuals and organisations, according to the minutes of the meeting.

The government will start evicting the encroachers and demolish structures built on reserved forestland if they do not move away within seven days from receiving the notices, said Saber Hossain Chowdhury, the chairman of the committee.

The ministry communicated with the divisional as well as the deputy commissioners on the eviction drives.

The ministry informed the committee it was working on a list of 90,000 encroachers following a previous directive.