DND residents facing water logging

FE Team | Published: August 01, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Shahar Banu was cooking rice for lunch on a makeshift bed floating on filthy water in a tiny house in Shanarpar in Shiddhirganj. Something her daughter-in-law Fatema Begum said they had been doing for a week after floodwaters went waist-high inside their home, reports bdnews24.com.
Their neighbours Kalu Mia, Shahinur Akter, Abdur Rashid and Abdur Razzak, also stricken by the deluge, were left to do similar manoeuvrings as well to throw together a meal.
Areas along the Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra (DND) Dam including Matuail, Shahidnagar, Boxnagar, Tengra, Hajinagar, Dogair, Konapara, Jalkuri, Kadamtali, Wascolony, Shantidhara, Shanarpar, Batenpara, Painadi, Kandapara, Sahebpara, Nimaikashari, Baghmara, Hajiganj, Bamail, Rayerbagh, Sadair, Enayetnagar, Godnail, Taltala, Madhugar, Nayapara, Mizmizi, Mouchak and Nayamati have gone under knee to waist-deep water.
People living in the areas struggle with dirty water in the rainy season every year. To them, rain means floating on foul-smelling filthy water.
Officials at the DND pump house blamed the residents for their own sufferings by illegally occupying canals.
Nuri Abul Quashem, executive engineer of the pump house, said 12 pumps were in operation 24 hours a day in rotation. Filth in the water slowed down the machines, he added.
He denied allegations of the people that the pumps mostly remain switched off. "They don't understand that we are here just to operate the pumps," he said.
Masud Ahmed, executive engineer of the Water Development Board (civil), faulted unplanned construction of houses and factories for the water-logging.
He said that there was no problem with the dam, which along with the pump house were made for irrigation of 14,500 acres of cropland.
At the time of construction, canals were deep and there was almost no water-logging. Now, about two million people live in the area and the drainage system was not adequate to drain out water, Masud said.
He said newspapers kept running stories on the DND Dam, which said did not reflect the real situation of the dam. He said the reports always claimed the dam was vulnerable to breaches, but in reality it was different.
"The dam might have leakages, but they pose no threat to it," he said. Locals, however, had a different story.
Abdur Razzak said the problem was with latrines. They made latrines with bamboo behind the houses, but the filth sometimes floated with the floodwater into the houses.
Abdur Rashid, who has long been living in Shanarpar, said he had not seen such water logging before 1998. He said the canal at Pagla had been reduced to a fourth of its size.
Abdur Rashid said authorities did not take any effective step to widen the canal. "Sometimes they removed some houses along the canal but did not do anything to dredge and widen it."