Like many other specialties, a country like Bangladesh, also known as the land of rivers, crisscrossed over 300 rivers with different regions. The outflow of water from Bangladesh is the third highest in the world next to the Amazon and Congo systems. Apart from major rivers like Padma, Meghna, Jamuna, Dhaleshwari, Karnaphuli, Buriganga, and Teesta, the whole landscape has a fascinating network of rivers, composed of middle, semi middle and small rivers. The sharing of water of the river Teesta has yet to be resolved with our neighbouring country India, during the last several decades.
Water experts at a seminar underscored the need for empowering the National River Conservation Commission being the highest body to govern the multiple river related problems of the country. All these were discussed at the event held in the capital on Wednesday organised by Water keepers Bangladesh. Sharif Jamil, coordinator of Water keepers Bangladesh, chaired the seminar, while Mohammed Golam Sarwar, assistant professor of law at Dhaka University, presented the keynote paper on NRCC law detailing pros and cons in the best interest of the country’s water bodies.
Bangladesh parliament has been passing many bills on national issues, but they did not bother to enact the NRCC law, alleged Mujibor Rahman Hawlader, former chairman of the NRCC, highlighting varied problems in relevant areas. He said, “When I was the chairperson, I managed to make a list of 63,000 river grabbers from deputy commissioners across the country.” Prof Ahmad Kamruzzaman of Stamford University commented that, “Our initiatives fall flat because we don’t have well thought out, modern scientific river policy. We must enact the law soon so that NRCC gets stronger in its endeavour.”
With that end in view, we deem it necessary that the government functionaries involved in the whole affair have to take a pragmatic decision to formulate modern scientific river policy for empowering river commission so that it could move ahead to contribute immensely with greater national spirit to help resolve the existing problems prevalent in the arena of water bodies across the country.
