Environmental governance in the country has come under renewed scrutiny after a factory accused of polluting a river was honoured as a “green factory” by a separate government ministry — despite its environmental clearance being suspended.
X Ceramics, located along the heavily polluted Lobolong River in Gazipur, had its environmental clearance halted by the Ministry of Environment for “untreated, clay-mixed grey effluent” flowing directly into the river.
Yet less than six weeks earlier, the Ministry of Labour had handed the same company the Green Factory Award 2025 at a ceremony in Dhaka’s Osmani Memorial Auditorium, attended by Labour Adviser M Sakhawat Hossain and Industries Adviser Adilur Rahman Khan.
The contrast, revealed in documents obtained by TIMES of Bangladesh, lays bare a chronic lack of inter-ministerial coordination – or, as environment campaigners say nepotism. Activists say the episode makes a mockery of the country’s environmental efforts, arguing it is “beyond belief” that two of the government’s most important ministries could be so completely unaware of each other’s actions.
According to the environment ministry correspondence dated 6 August, inspectors found that X Ceramics’ discharge had “filled the riverbed with clay sediment, disrupted its flow” and violated both the Environment Conservation Act (1995, amended 2010) and Environment Conservation Rules 2023 — offences that carry legal penalties. The Directorate of Environment’s Gazipur deputy director, Arefin Badol, confirmed the findings. “We saw pollution during inspection,” he told TIMES.
Yet documents show that on 24 June — despite the company reportedly operating without renewed clearance since December 2024 — the labour ministry presented X Ceramics with the prestigious award. Critics question how such information failed to travel “a few desks across the government”, describing the situation as an indictment of the state’s environmental oversight.
Asked how a factory under investigation for pollution could win a top environmental honour, Mohammad Mahfuzur Rahman Bhuiyan, member-secretary of the Green Factory Award evaluation committee, said the award was meant to “encourage” industries. “The environment department did not say the factory is polluting,” he insisted — contradicting the ministry’s own documents.
Environment officials say the factory has been issued notice and called for a hearing. “Compensation will be imposed first,” said Syed Ahmed Kabir, deputy director of monitoring and enforcement. “If violations continue, power may be disconnected, or a case filed in the environmental court.”
In Shreepur, Upazila Nirbahi Officer Sajib Ahmed told TIMES that eviction documents had been prepared as part of a Water Development Board project. “The portion built on the Lobolong will be removed. We’re only awaiting implementation,” he said, estimating the operation would cost Tk75 lakh.
The company disputes the allegations, arguing that Lobolong is a “canal, not a river”. When asked about a non-functional ETP flow-meter — flagged by the environment ministry — company officials responded, “If the flow-meter was not functioning, how would we receive the Green Factory Award?”
X Ceramics also claimed to possess all necessary LGRD approvals for constructing a culvert over the river — a structure satellite imagery shows did not exist in 2014 but now connects factory installations on both banks.
The 29-kilometre-long Lobolong — once known as Lobondoho Sagar (Sea) — originates in Mymensingh’s Bhaluka and flows into the Turag at Mirzapur. Research by the Centre for River and Delta Studies ranks it the most polluted river in the country, owing to more than a thousand industries along its banks.
Satellite images from 2014, 2017 and 2024 reveal the rapid expansion of X Ceramics across both sides of the river and construction of a culvert deemed illegal by river protection regulations. The latest imagery shows severe sedimentation from grey, clay-mixed effluent.
Environmentalists say the contradiction between ministries is not a bureaucratic oversight but a structural failure.
Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) Secretary General Alamgir Kabir said that the Labour Ministry had effectively undermined the Environment Ministry by honouring a factory officially identified as a polluter.
He said the environment ministry, as the government wing responsible for protecting the environment, had already categorised X Ceramics as both a river grabber and a polluting industry. “How can another wing of the same government — the Labour Ministry — give the Green Factory Award to a factory already identified as a violator?” he asked, calling the decision “utterly reprehensible”.
Kabir alleged that the Labour Ministry had bypassed the environment ministry and acted out of favouritism in awarding the factory. He said BAPA “strongly condemns and protests” the move and urged the authorities to revoke the award immediately and bring the officials involved in the selection process to exemplary punishment.
As Lobolong shrinks from a river into a drain, campaigners warn that unless ministries stop working at cross-purposes, such contradictions will continue to erode public trust — and the rivers themselves.
