Tripura government raised objection against the setting up of brick kilns in Bangladesh territory along the border during the crucial Indo-Bangladesh District Magistrate and Deputy Commissioner-level meeting on Wednesday.
The West Tripura district magistrate sought attention of his Bangladesh counterpart, over the issue and said emission from those brick kilns caused deterioration of air quality of Agartala city and this is one of the important reasons of air pollution in the city.
While DC Brahmanbaria Hayat-Ud-Dowllah Khan assured his Indian counterpart of West Tripura DM Sandeep N Mahatma to take up the matter at appropriate level for resolving the neighbour’s concern; he also asked the Tripura administration to ensure that no mobile towers are installed along the Indo-Bangladesh border.
Khan also pressed for fast construction of sewage treatment plant (STP) inside India in Agartala for treating Howrah River water before releasing them to Bangladesh.
Despite sufficient rainfall and humid sub-tropical climate, water pollution due to discharge of contaminated sewage into natural stream that flows down to Bangladesh became a matter of concern for the both the countries.
According to the report of Central Water Commission the pollution load in entire stretches of rivers of Tripura due to the dumping of human excreta, domestic sewage and a few industrial effluents directly into the rivers, which have been flowing down to Bangladesh.
The matter was first flagged in DM-DC level meeting of India and Bangladesh in July 2013 where Bangladesh had asked Tripura to stop discharging contaminated water to their country through Kathakhal and Kalapania drain of Agartala as per international water protocol.
