COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh March 14 (NNN-BSS) – Unplanned and unauthorized construction of hotels and motels in Cox’s Bazar town and adjoining areas has blurred the beauty of the world’s largest sea beach, compromising its tourism potentials.

Mayor and local administration, two main custodians of the 105-km long natural beach, said the beach town has 400 hotels, motels, resorts and guest houses, but only 60 of them have taken registration from proper authorities before their constructions.

“The Cox’s Bazar is losing its main and rare characteristics — sea in the front and hills in the rear — which gives a spectacular view to thousands of domestic and international
tourists in the beach town,” mayor Sarwar Kamal told BSS recently.

Sarwar Kamal said his municipality could not control the illegal construction even up to last year because the hotel-motel zone, which was supposed to be a residential area in the original plan, was outside the periphery of Cox’s Bazar pourasabha.

The area has, however, come under the municipality in 2009 after its expansion to 30 square km from merely a 10 square km, he added.

“I have been shouting for a long to develop Cox’s Bazar, Inani, Teknaf, Saint Martin and Sonadia Islands under a single master plan,” said Sarwar Kamal, mayor for last nine years, giving thanks to the present government for taking the initiative
finally.

The government, he said, has initiated the formulation of the master plan, encompassing all the tourists spots along the beach spread over 105 km from Cox’s Bazar to Shah Porir Dwip in Teknaf as well as adjoining Saint Martin’s Island, the only offshore coral island of the country in the Bay of Bengal.

He, however, urged the government to implement the master plan, which had also been attempted during deposed president HM Ershad, but that was executed later on. Implementation is equally or more important that adopting the master plan, he observed.

The draft plan is likely to be completed by a consultant company by September this year, said an official of the Civil Aviation and Tourism Ministry.

He said the Beach Master Plan would give clear guidelines for beach development to all and construction of infrastructures with proper building code, now completely absent.

“The way constrictions are being going unabated would soon force hills to disappear from vicinity of the tourists due to high rise constructions and hill cutting,” additional deputy commissioner Mohammad Nurul Amin Nizami told journalists.

The district administration has been preparing a list of the unauthorized structures in hotel motel zone, he said without clarifying future course of action against those buildings.

In a separate step, the government last month has cancelled allotment of nearly 59 plots of the hotel-motel zone as those were distributed among the BNP-Jamaat party fellows, who failed to comply with the condition of lease that include beginning of
construction within three years after the allotment.

President of hotel-motel association Abul Kashem Shikder said it was urgent to list the unauthorized hotels, motels and resorts and guest houses, but deferred with a common idea of demolition of the structures.

The government can confiscate the unauthorized building and should only demolish provided some were found risky from civil engineering, civil aviation and environment point of views, he said.

He also welcomed the big real-estate companies investing in tourism sector in Cox’s Bazar, but urged them to develop hotels, motels and studio apartments after clearance from concerned authorities.

Mayor Sarwar Kaml said his municipality has recently received an ultimatum from the hotel-motel association for a sit- in programme in front of his office if he fails to meet their garbage disposal demand, now a major concern for Cox’s Bazar people and tourists.

He said the waste and sewerage anagement has become a major challenge for the municipality, which has neither budget nor a vehicle to dispose wastes properly.

He, however, agreed that the everyday garbage piled along narrow streets of the beach town has been negatively affecting tourists’ minds and enjoyment.–NNN-BSS

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