Rights activist and eminent citizen Sultana Kamal today urged the government not to destroy the environment and nature for any development activities.

Sultana Kamal was addressing a mass hearing on the construction on Matarbari coal-fired power plant at the Liberation War Museum at capital’s Agargaon.

“We asked the government for sending their representatives at the mass hearing but they didn’t, which probes that the administration does not believe in the process of accountability and do not want to come under the process of accountability,” she said.

Claiming that the government did not take the opinions of locals while planning the coal-fired power plant in Matarbari, she demanded compensations for those who were evicted in and around the project area.

“As the works of the coal-fired power plant went far away, she urged the government to proceed for the next phases of the project in democratic way. 

Executive Committee of the National Economic Council on August 12 in 2014 approved the project, which will be implemented at Matarbari in Maheshkhali upazila of Cox’s Bazar by June 2024.

Of the total fund, Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) will provide Tk 93.55 crore for the densification of global navigation of tidal station in Bangladesh and Tk 33 crore for a project of “human resources development scholarship”.