The Water Development Board in Jashore has been trying to solve the longstanding problem of waterlogging at Bhabadah by pumping out stagnant water using 20 pumps since the beginning of the current year. Installing the water pumps on the Bhabadah sluice gates and sealing the Hari river in January, the WDB has been draining out the rainwater deposited in the beels (depressions) which stay underwater for a major part of the year due to excessive siltation in the tidal rivers.
The Bhabadah region comprises around 52 beels in Jashore Sadar, Abhaynagar, Monirampur, and Keshabpur upazilas of Jashore and Dumuria upazila of Khulna. These areas, especially villages adjacent to the beels, remain largely inundated, especially during the rainy season. The waterlogging problem started in the late ’80s due to excessive sedimentation amid lack of upstream water flow which once used to push sediment downstream.
This year rainfall has been less in the Bhabadah region compared to the previous years and if normal rainfall occurs, the areas will go under water and the pumps will become useless. People living in the villages adjacent to the 52 beels spent money from their own pockets to pump out water from the crop fields to cultivate paddy in this immediate past Boro season.
The people of the area say under a TRM approach of managing waterlogging, an embankment is built around a beel leaving two cut-points for water to enter and recede. When the water recedes during low tide, it makes the sediment deposited on the riverbed go in a natural process. But WDB is proposing yet another water pumping project costing Tk 50 crore. TRM is considered a well-planned and proven method that can manage the sediment of the river, keep it navigable, and ease waterlogging. We urge the WDB to be practical not to experiment with the people’s sufferings.
