Environmental concerns over Cox’s Bazar’s hotel industry have resurfaced after allegations of river pollution and waste dumping. Advisor M. Sakhawat Hossain has instructed government agencies to go beyond imposing fines and to shut down hotels responsible for environmental violations.

Speaking in Cox’s Bazar, Sakhawat said,
“Year after year, the Department of Environment fines hotels millions of taka, yet river pollution continues. Simply fining them has not worked — the hotels dumping waste must be shut down completely.”

He further stressed the urgent need to first free rivers from illegal occupation and then make them pollution-free.