Karnaphuli river capital dredging restarts

NAZIMUDDIN SHYAMOL | Published: May 21, 2021 23:25:31

CHATTOGRAM, May 21: Capital dredging of Karnaphuli River restarted with local equipment last month after dredging with imported dredgers faced obstacles as the riverbed was filled with plastic wastes and other hard objects last year.
Coronavirus outbreak had also halted dredging work multiple times in 2020.
Sources said, 30 per cent dredging has been completed since the Tk 2.42 billion (Tk 242 crore) Karnaphuli Capital Dredging Project was launched in 2011 after the Purchase Committee of the concerned ministry approved it on March 3 that year.
Then the committee selected a Malaysian company to dredge the river and following the selection, the Chittagong Port Authority gave a Notification of Award (NOA) to Malaysia Dredging Corporation. But the company could not complete dredging with imported foreign machinery mainly due to plastic waste and upstream siltation.
Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) in association with Bangladesh Navy is implementing the project with the implementation time getting an extension by one more year and the project cost going up by Tk 600 million (Tk 60 crore).
CPA officials said work on the capital dredging project to increase draft of the Chittagong Port Channel was stopped in early 2020 due to random siltation, piling up of polythene and plastic waste on the river bed and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Project Director and Chief Hydrographer of CPA M Arifur Rahman said, "We have restarted capital dredging last month and the dredging is going on in full swing with Grab Cutters as per advice of the expert committee of BUET.
He said the committee advised dredging 5.1 million (51 lakh) cft muds from the river instead of 4.8 million (48 lakh) cft with Grab Cutters.
"A total of 11 per cent dredging was completed in only last month (April) while 20 per cent work was completed in the previous 10 years as the work was halted several times due to various obstacles during the period. Locally-made dredging equipment, Grab Cutter, is being used to dredge mud and polythene from the river bed and we are successfully carrying out dredging work since April with the local machinery which was made as per advice of the BUET experts," he said.
Mr Rahman also said the navigability of Karnaphuli has become very hazardous because of plastic waste. Chittagong Port's Jetty No-1 became unusable eight years ago due to heavy siltation.
"According to the revised DPP of the project, the time of dredging will be increased one year and cost will be increased by at least 60 crores taka," he added.
CPA Secretary Mohammed Omar Faruk said the capital dredging was hampered for several reasons earlier.
"We needed a new, special type of dredger as the imported one failed to dredge plastic goods from the river bed," he told the FE.
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