Govt to recover all occupied forest land:  Minister

Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury has said the government has taken steps to recover all the 2.57 lakh acres encroached land from the grabbers.

The minister said this while responding to a supplementary question raised by opposition Jatiya Party Chief Whip Mujibul Huq of Kishorganj-3 during the question-answer session at the Jaitya Sangsad on Tuesday.

“We already have taken measures to recover the encroached forest land and 27,000 acres of land have already been recovered…and the process to recover rest grabbed land is now underway”, said the minister.

Referring to the issue as very much important, the ministers said around 2,57000 acres of land have already been encroached and a full-fledged list of the grabbers has been prepared according to a survey.

For carrying out any further development activities, Chowdhury said most of the development activities including construction of roads, installation of electricity distribution poles are being conducted using the protected forest land and resulting in the deforestation is being occurred in this way.

So, in future the concerned authorities must have to mention the nature of land in their project profile when they [the authorities]will conduct acquisition of the forest land, said the minister, adding that it will help to raise awareness among the officials when it will go to the Planning Commission.