SYLHET, Nov 18: The Water Development Board (WDB) would spend Tk 360 million for reconstruction and repair work on the 600 km crop protection embankments in Sunamganj district this year.
A number of officials said proposed amount was Tk 760 million. However, the allocation may be increased later.
Executive engineer of WDB, Sunamagnj, Abu Baker Siddique said the extent of damage to the embankments was lesser this year.
"As there was no flood this year we would have to do some repair and reconstruction work only", he added.
Of the 1600-km crop protection embankments in the district, repair and reconstruction work on 1,490 km was done last year.
It includes 800 km-long new embankment through 965 project implementation committees (PIC). The total cost stood at Tk 156 billion, the ever highest amount spent for the purpose, sources said.
Once, embankment schemes used to be implemented through the contractors of the WDB. But in the pretext of local demand, the government introduced PIC system, involving locals alongside the contracting system.
Again the government introduced new system of supervision by the district and upazila administrations over the whole process last year as large scale allegations were raised in after the colossal crop damage.
The district-level committee, headed by the deputy commissioner approved the PICs formed by union council and processed by the upazila bodies last year.
As per government policy, the works are to be done from November 16 to February 28. But, due to delay in water recession from haors, things can never be done in time.
Meanwhile, the DAE has set a target of Boro cultivation on 217,000 hectares of land in the district where most of the croplands are inside 154 haors now.
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