Anisur Rahman Khan :
At least 70 river routes have been losing their navigability every year across the country in absence of dredging due to financial crisis.
As per statements of the cargo, passenger and oil tanker owners associations, it demands dredgingof 91 river routes annually—but the department concerned can dredge only 20-22 river routes annually due to lack of fund crisis.
As a result, the people of the country and traders have been facing hardship to transport goods in river ways, which is cheaper than roads communication, sources in the Shipping Ministry told this correspondent.
Besides, the nation is also facing environment and ecological crisis, and farmers are failing to irrigate their crops using the rivers waters. Many fishermen have also become unemployed due to lack of natural waters.
However, a total of 3200 kilometers of waterways have so far been restored by spending Tk 1,422 crore during the last 11 years across the country under the different capital dredging projects.
Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) is implementing the project to restore 53 important river routes to increase their navigability to keep the waterways navigable round the year. Of them, restoration of 24 important river routes to be completed this year in the first phase.
Before starting the capital dredging project, there were about 2,500 kilometers of waterways, said official statistics prepared by the BIWTA on June 30 last year.
However, due to the ongoing dredging project, which is being executed by the BIWTA, there are 5,421 kilometers of waterways during the dry season,
while 7,400 kilometers of waterways during the rainy season, said the BIWTA official documents.
Talking to The New Nation, Mohammad Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury, Shipping Secretary said, “We have a target of dredging 10,000 km river ways by 2023. We have also a yearly target and the dredging works are going on as per the targets.”
When asked regarding completion of the projects, he replied, “our project work was going very smoothly—but it has been hampered due to the pandemic like situation of coronavirus.”
He said that they had already restored about 3,000 KMs of waterways.
“We have already completed procurement of 20 dredgers project to expedite dredger base and now we are working to procure 35 dredgers to increase the dredging capacity of BIWTA,” the shipping secretary added.
About the major barriers in conducting dredging work to reclaim the riverways, Mohammad Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury further said, “After dredging works are completed, one of the major issues is maintenance or management of the dredged materials or in other words, maintaining the depth of the dredged areas.”
He also mentioned that BIWTA had a long-term issues of coordinating with the Water Resources Ministry which, he said, had been resolved.
The government has taken up the projects to restore navigability. Most of the rivers have lost their capacity to contain water because of heavy siltation and the construction of illegal structures in the riverbeds.
As part of the plan, the government had taken up, in July 2012, a 10-year project plan at a cost of Tk 1,923 crore to develop a total of 5,421 km of waterways by June 2021.
The rivers under the project are Mongla-Ghasiakhali Channel (MG Channel), Khogdon, Laukathi, Bhola Nala, Kirtonkhola, Titas, Surma, Baulai, Natun Nadi, Rakti, Raksha Nala, Mogra, Kangsha, Bhogai-Kangsha, Buri, Ichamati, Karnatali, Palrodi, Dhaleswari, Kaliganga, Madhumati, Bhairab, Atrai, Dudhkumar, Old Brahmaputra and Arial Kha.
Saidur Rahman, Additional Chief Engineer (dredging) of BIWTA said, “We will start the second phase covering the remaining important river routes after the completion of the 24 important river routes (first phase).”
At least Tk 800 crore is needed to dredge 5.5 lakh cubic meter under maintenance dredging per year, he said, adding that they are getting only Tk 200 crore in this regard.
He said that the Mongla-Ghasiakhali (MG) channel in Kumarkhali River had become totally inoperative in 2011 but now reopened for operation after the completion of dredging.
“Now, vessels having 8–14 feet draft were frequently operating in the MG Channel,” Rahman said, adding that the channel water was 12 feet during low tide and 20 feet during high tide.
