Boat sailing up Padma river Bangladesh, a deltaic region of the Indian subcontinent, was famous for its ebbing mighty rivers and their innumerable tributaries with waters full to the brim. The tradition, culture, society, economy and the life system of people of the country were tremendously influenced by these mighty rivers and their tributaries.
The traditional agricultural economy was facilitated by sedimentation of fertile silts that came down in profusion mixed with the river waters on to the crop fields flooded in the monsoon. The resulting natural fertility of the soil became so great that agricultural activities were easy, least costly and widespread in the country. Life was easy, charming and serene free from the vexed uproar and pollution.
The rivers that were once the means of sustenance of the people of this ebbing region are now nothing but dead canals and memory of the past. According to BIWTA sources, one storied launches used to ply in 88 river routes a few years back. In addition to these, common country boats and engine-run boats used to ply in these routes. The ferry-boatmen earned their livelihood by ferrying passengers. People used to travel and carry goods to far distance places and towns by goyna-boats (large boats). Huge boats were used to carry goods and materials from one region of the country to others.
The River Transport Ministry sources say that 24 thousand kilometers of riverways all over the country have become risky. The boatmen and the drivers of engine-run trawlers and launches being unemployed are passing unbearable life along with the fishermen who used to fish in the rivers. About 300 thousands of families of the southern coast of the country live on fishing. About 600 thousands families including fish-warehouses, wholesalers and workers live on fish business. The gypsy tribes of Bangladesh lived for ages and generations in boats on the rivers. Now they have started to settle and are trying to be habituated on the land life in the absence of live rivers which they used to love most and where they felt habitually most comfortable. They are now at the mercy of varieties of government help like VGF and VGD allotments.
Thirty out of 700 rivers in the south-west of the country have lost navigability due to accumulation of silts and surfacing of alluvial land in their basins. Now, a moderate tidal-surge in the monsoon causes overflowing of the banks of these rivers with flood waters submerging the alluvial lands and causing river erosion in the adjoining villages. Saline waters enter the overflowing rivers to ruin crop-lands. The rivers which were once full of sweet water are now simply sandy swathes of land. Even in the basin of the once mighty Meghna, there are numerous sandy alluvial lands. Once the banks of the Meghna between Bhola and Laxmipur wwere not visible from the other end because of the width. Now it is strewn with many sandy patches. The huge Shahbazpur river made the boatmen unnerved while crossing it; now it is a dead river. The Hilsha fishes that swarmed to Shahbazpur, Meghna and Kalabadar rivers to lay eggs leaving behind the saline waters of the Bay of Bengal are now moving to the rivers bordering Myanmar as the dept of these rivers has decreased alarmingly. Tens of millions of taka were once exchanged during the hilsa catching season in these rivers.
The Gabkhan channel beside Jhalokathi was once known as the Suez Canal of Bangladesh. Centring this channel in many places between Barishal-Jhalokathi and the Mongla port, many business centres once flourished. At that time, many ships carrying various sorts of merchandise used to ply between the Haldia port of India and Jhalokathi and Chittagong via Mongla through the Gabkhan channel. Passenger ships used to ply up to Sirajgonj from Haldia via Barisal. These sound like fairy tales today as even canoes cannot pass through these dead and slimy trickles now.
Because of the navigation crisis, business centres of the south-western regions along with Jhalokathi are closing down. The industries of the south-western regions are closing down one by one because of the increasing prices of industrial products resulting from unaffordable road transport costs. The workers are becoming unemployed. The GK Project, Sonjuri Project, Modhumoti-Madaripur Bil Route Cannel Irrigation Project (MBR Project), Satla-Bagdha Irrigation Project, Barishal-Jhalokathi and Pirojepur Irrigation Project and other numerous Projects based on rivers of the regions to enhance agricultural productions have fallen headlong. Agricultural production has fallen, as wide areas of crop land within these Projects areas are now barren for years.
A 1955 BIWTA estimate shows that there are 700 hundreds rivers in the country. During the last fifty years some of the rivers became fully dead and filled up. There are only 212 rivers left now for all time navigations according to the BIWTA. But the Water Development Board maintains that there are 310 navigable rivers at present. According to them, there is no flow of stream in the southern Bangladesh rivers like Agarpur, Palrodi, Sandha, Sugandha, Arial Khan, Kalabadar, Agunmukha, Baleshar, Bishkhali, Khatapora, Khata Chera, Junahar, Ilisha, and Bura Gouranga. Officials of Bangladesh River Research Institute inform that this situation is the result of seasonal and climatic changes. The adverse effects of the Farakka Barrage have caused the small rivers to be filled up with the accumulation of silts, water-hyacinths and useless plants.
Water experts opine that the weakening of stream in the Padma and Meghna, the sources of water flow of their 30 tributaries of south-western Bangladesh, has influenced the water flow of these tributaries. Same is the case with the Jamuna and Brahmaputra and their tributaries. As these tributaries have become streamless, the silts that accumulate in their basins in the monsoon are not removed resulting in the surfacing of innumerable small and big chars causing non-navigability. Moreover, as the rivers are becoming waterless, fish resource in these regions is fast depleting.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) maintains that 54 species of sweet water country fishes are in danger of facing extinction in Bangladesh. Because of increased salinity, the process of extinction of different varieties of country fishes around the coastal regions of the Sundarbans has already started. In the past two decades, several species of country fishes have been totally lost.
The writer is a retired professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre. [email protected]
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