Workers’ Party president, Rashed Khan Menon, MP, a partner of the Awami League-led ruling coalition, said on Monday that the proposed water law would commercialise and privatise water.
Speaking at a seminar in the city on ‘Draft Bangladesh Water Act 2012 and the Water Rights of People’, he said that the proposed law would not protect the people’s rights to
water.
The Association for Land Reform and Development and Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association jointly organized the seminar with the assistance from Water Rights Forum to celebrate International Water Day.
The draft law emphasizes on distribution of water which means commercialization of water, said Menon.
He criticised the provision in the proposed law for framing water policy.
He said that policies often frustrate the very objective of making laws.
In her keynote paper, ‘Bangladesh Draft Water Act 2012 and the Water Rights of people’. BELA chief executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan said, ‘the draft law is silent about who would implement it.’
She said that the proposed law would forfeit government’s authority on water supply and establish private sector companies’ control over it.
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology associate professor Shahjahan Mandal, Water Resource Planning Organization former director Enamul Haque, Bangladesh Paribesh Andalan secretary generals Abdul Matin and LARD chairperson Khushi Kabir also
spoke.
They said that the proposed water law would commercialize water which cannot protect people’s right to water.
The proposed law does not address the problem of water crisis prone areas, water pollution and encroachment of water bodies, they said.
The policy makers drafted the proposed law, they said, to serve the interests of some multinational companies.