Bangladesh's rivers are dying, unwept. One feels seriously concerned about the rate of reduction of navigability of the country's countless rivers and rivulets once adored by tourists, especially the Bangalees coming from abroad. Many of our folk songs have their moorings in rivers.
Although the Prime Minister has time and again directed the authorities concerned to take up the issue and do the needful, none, however, appears to have taken it seriously. Even her directive to form a River Commission to take charge of the rivers' life and longevity remains a pious wish. River care has still been left to the money-making sharks.
As a result, the vast Gumti River is fast drying up at Daudkandi, Comilla. Thousands travelling on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway are daily distressed to see the once turbulent river developing vast shoals with human habitation coming up on these. Once it took nearly 45 minutes to cross the river by ferries but now the long bridge connecting Dhaka with Daudkandi stands as an item of attraction for boat-riders and onlookers on the banks.
None, not even the local member of parliament, cares about the need for immediate and massive dredging of the Gumti. Hundreds of thousands of people who used to irrigate their farm lands producing bumper harvests will have a tough time to get irrigation water or thousands of families will fail to use river water for household chores.
There is another river slowly dying along the Nayergaon Bazaar of Maltab upazila in Chandpur district. Once, thousands used to touch Nayergaon terminal aboard motor launches before they landed at Matlab headquarters. Dozens of such vessels used to ply from Dhaka and Narayanganj daily to Matlab via Nayergaon Bazaar. The river was ever youthful, full of water providing water to hundreds of hectares of farmlands in and around the launch station.
Today, the river at Nayergaon Bazaar is getting squeezed with every passing day. A brick field built near the river might have caused the rot. But sadly, there is seemingly none to look into this.
Similar is the fate of other rivers across the country.
It is unfortunate that the country's waterway network has been shrinking drastically due to inability of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) to remove increased siltation from the riverbeds, causing a negative impact on the overall economy.
Latest statistics are hard to come by. Even a decade ago, the waterway routes were reduced to 3,800 km from 5,200 km in winter season, thanks to the successive governments' indifference to strengthen the dredging department of the BIWTA over the past three decades though the demand for dredging has been increasing gradually. It means now the country's waterway network is about 6,000 km in the rainy season while about 3,800 km in dry season.
But experts say now the waterway routes might be less than that, as no survey was carried out in the recent years. They have blamed acute shortage of budget to strengthen the dredging, as budgetary allocation was not increased in this regard in the last five years.
"The waterway has gradually been unfit for navigation as it is not being possible to remove silt by dredging as per demand, hampering navigation, irrigation and fisheries," said a report of the BIWTA.
Flow of river water has been reduced causing obstacle to sewerage system during the flood, leaving negative impact on the country's overall economy.
What is badly and urgently needed is a consortium of different agencies to be headed by the Navy to carry out the task of dredging as it is very easy to pocket billions of taka that are involved in otherwise expensive dredging.
"None knows how much silts are removed from the river-beds. It can't be seen," said an expert ruefully.
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Rivers dying, unwept
Rahman Jahangir | Published: March 13, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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