Home ›› 31 Jul 2021 ›› Nation
Despite the government’s consistent effort and necessary monetary allocation, thousands of people in Feni’s flood-prone areas suffer greatly for fragile embankments along the rivers flowing through the small district.
People living beside Muhuri, Kohua, Silonia rivers under the Fulgazi and Parshuram upazilas are losing their homesteads, croplands, and other properties in flood the locality faces every year.
The locals alleged that the insincerity of Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) officials and their indifference to embankments are the major reasons behind the embankments’ going fragile those collapse every year and need constant repair works.
According to the BWDB sources, In the 2017-18 fiscal year, the government allocated Tk 39,12,000 to repair seven breaches to different local contracting organisations. In 2018-19 FY, Tk 1,69,20,000 was given to repair 22 more breaches on the same embankment. In 2019-20 FY, 15 more breaches developed, and Tk 29,83,000 had been spent to repair them. In 2020-21 FY, the government spent Tk 1,15,00,000 to repair eight more breaches.
The 122 kilometres long embankment was built between 2005 and 2011 at the cost of Tk 100,55,00,000 and it was repaired four times in the past four years costing an amount of Tk 3,53,15,000 in total.
On a field visit, the cracks on the embankment were seen and water was gushing in through the cracks and inundated vast area under the two upazilas.
At the beginning of this year, onrush of water from upstream of the rivers in India eroded the embankment and inundated the low-lying areas of the upazilas, said the locals.
Eight months back, eight cracks developed on the parts of the embankment along the Muhuri river, and inundated 15 villages. Despite repair work had been done, two more cracks developed, inundating five more villages on November 2020, added the locals.
Nurul Islam, a resident of Fulgazi, said: “The fragile embankment keep breaching at the same spots year after year. The authority hires the same contracting agencies they had hired before, and they repairing the cracks with low quality materials.”
“We will surely hold the BWDB officials responsible for the dilapidated condition of the embankment. They are insincere to look over the repair work and in the end, the contracting agencies reap the benefit of their indifference,” he added.
“The contractors are getting richer by the day, and we are suffering, losing our land every year,” said Nurul.
Saiful Islam Majumdar, Jahirul Islam, along with other residents of the area, attributed the close proximity of the embankment with the river, the indifference of BWDB, the haphazard repair work of contractors to the fragile state of the embankment.
“We want a sustainable embankment to prevent the inundation we face every year. Otherwise, it will keep collapsing, causing us to lose our houses, lands and properties twice a year,” said Saiful.
Denying the allegations against the BWDB officials, Supervisor of BWDB, Md Nasir Uddin said: “We could not place the embankment far from the river because of the locals. They didn’t allocate us the land necessary for the placement and now the embankment is keeping collapsing regularly.”
“We are planning to move towards a more sustainable and permanent solution. We already made a technical committee to look over the matter and initiate a project. After that, we will send a proposal to the ministry to implement the project,” further added the BWDB official.
“We need a sustainable embankment which will be able to manage the constant flood risks the locality faces every year. The Ministry of Water Resources and the Water Development Board should work together to find a lasting solution,” said Md Wahiduzzaman, deputy director of BWDB at Feni.
