Bagerhat Correspondent :
The estuary of the rive Bhairab, which popularly known as “Alaipur Bharani” has been silted up.
As a result, boats cannot ply in the river, causing much inconvenience to the people in general and the businessmen of Bagerhat district in particular.
The statuary, 40 kilometres in long originates from the river Bhairab near Alaipur in Khulna district and falls into the river Daratana in Bagerhat district crossing some important Upazila headquarters and important business centres like Rupsa Upazila Alaipur, Mansa, Bahirdia, Faskirhat, Sonakhali, Jatrapur and Bagerhat district headquarters.
The river provides a link between the river Rupsa (Khiulna) and Daratana (Bagerhat). It is the part of the river Bhairab, the biggest river of the south-western Bengal and it (Bhairab) originated from the river Padma..
At my places of the river a number of religious functions are held by the Hindu community for attaining deity and village fairs on those occasions.
It may be mentioned here that the river becomes almost dry in the dry season. Consequently, it has lost its commercial importance and prosperity. A boat takes maximum 12 hours to reach from Bagerhat to Khulna and vice versa in the rainy season. But due to the silting up of the river boats ply between Bagerhat and Khulna through another route. A boat normally takes about 2 days or more to reach from one end to other through this new route. This new river route is not a safer one. It has virtually made the plying of boats between Bagerhat and Khulna in this dry season an impossible task.
This enhanced cost of transportations of mercantile goods affecting the price structures of different essential commodities adversely. The businessmen are facing great hardship in transporting their goods to and from Khulna and Bagerhat
The silting up of the river affects the cultivation of IRRI and Boro crops on the vast tracts of agricultural lands on both sides of the river. Power pumps are now in active to irrigate water the nearby Boro-IRRI blocks as water of the river has gone far down.
People who are now living on the banks of the river cannot produce sufficient crops after applying manure and labour because of fertility of the land.
The farmers of both the sides of the river will be able to produce huge quantity of IRRI, Boro and Aus paddy and solve the food problem of the area if this important river is re-excavated immediately.
