Dhaka tuesday august 2, 2011

TWO YEARS INTO RIVER PLEDGES

High on talks, low on deeds

River pledges stumble on suspected political will; grabbing goes on in full swing; experts fear wetlands to disappear in 24 years

Morshed Ali Khan and Pinaki Roy

Two years after The Daily Star launched a campaign to save the rivers around the capital, recent aerial, land and water surveys reveal a harrowing picture of killing the rivers through waste dumping, erecting bamboo fences, earth filling, unplanned dredging, building bridges with narrow clearances, and encroaching shorelines.

A recent survey by a Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) teacher on the city's wetland says if the encroachment continues at the current pace, all wetlands will disappear by 2035.

The government's announcement to save the rivers following the High Court's directives created much hype, and saw approval of reclamation projects involving hundreds of crores of taka.

However, lack of political commitment soon dented the government's enthusiasm, and sent everything back to its previous state, if not worse.

In a weeklong effort, The Daily Star correspondents visited all rivers in and around the city including the Buriganga, Shitalakkhya, Balu, Turag and Dhaleshwari, and the Tongi canal by boat. These correspondents also had an opportunity to have detailed aerial views of these water bodies.

Aerial views of the city and its peripheral areas along the five rivers reveal an alarming picture of indiscriminate landfilling, obliterating the entire canal system and flood plain, and threatening the rivers' existence.

Vast low-lying areas along the Balu, Shitalakkhya, Buriganga at Keraniganj, Turag and the Dhaleshwari are dotted with white sandy patches -- a sign of continuous landfilling with sand extracted from the Meghna river. Miles after miles along the periphery of the city, hundreds of landfill projects could be seen unloading sand from vessels through long steel pipes.

Along the rivers encircling the city, the long existing network of natural canals has already disappeared. At places half the width of canals could be visible. The other half disappeared under tonnes of sand dumped there for different housing projects. Large signboards of developers dot the paddy fields still surviving the onslaught of earth filling.

The city itself looks like a haphazard concrete jungle devoid of any natural landscape.

Despite repeated directives by the prime minister to take actions against the river grabbers, politically influential people in the name of so-called development projects continue plundering the peripheral landscapes. Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and the Department of Environment (DoE) officials are helpless against their indiscriminate grabbing.

Environmentalists say saving the rivers in this populous country is not an easy job. Setting up a scarecrow in the middle of a river will not deter the river grabbers, they observe.

"The government agencies have turned into a wooden cat, completely unable to chase the mouse. They are not able to take actions properly due to influence of political leaders," said architect Iqbal Habib of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan (BAPA).

"The court's directives to save the rivers are not implemented properly as the government officials don't have accountability. The government did not hold accountable any official, although they violated the court directives as well as orders of their higher authorities," he added.

The present government vowed to protect the city's rivers and wetlands following demands from the civil society, environmentalists, and the media.

In response to a campaign by the media, the government in June 2009 pledged to restore water flow in the rivers, stop pollution and encroachment, and recover the grabbed portions of the rivers.

The pledges apart, the government was also legally bound to restore the river systems, as the High Court on June 25, 2009 issued a set of directives upon it to stop pollution and encroachment.

In May-June 2009 The Daily Star ran two series of reports on encroachment and pollution of four rivers -- the lifeline for the densely populated capital -- and launched a campaign styled "Save River, Save Dhaka".

The government responded positively with the prime minister making a raft of pledges to save the rivers. Even a project of around Tk 1,000 crore was initiated. But little has changed since then.

Two years after publishing the first river series in 2009, one of these correspondents travelled by a boat from Tongi canal to the Kanchpur Bridge, Sadarghat, Aminbazar, and the Tongi Bridge in four days.

BIWTA had earlier conducted several drives on the banks of the Buriganga, Turag and Shitalakkhya, but could not recover the grabbed portions of the rivers.

Interestingly, although the district administration in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Munshiganj completed surveys and demarcation of the four rivers by November 30 of last year, the government has yet to complete its drive against the grabbers.

Many of the filled up portions of the rivers were seen along the landing stations of BIWTA, the government agency entrusted with the task of maintaining navigability of the rivers and protecting the shorelines.

In Munshiganj, along the Dhaleshwari and Buriganga, hundreds of tall chimneys rose from the shores. From a aeroplane about 3,000 feet above the surface of the earth, it was clear that the river areas are encroached.

Alarmingly narrowed down, the Balu from above looks like a trickle where sand-laden vessels ply in the darkest of polluted waters to unload sand for landfilling. At places the landscape along the Balu looks like a desert with freshly dumped white sand. Signboards of realtors litter the entire area.

Along the Buriganga -- Kholamara, Jhauchar and other Keraniganj areas are also dotted with signs of fresh landfills. The second channel of the Buriganga can hardly be spotted as it has been almost totally filled up.

The same scenario could be witnessed along the Shitalakkhya in Narayanganj and the Turag in Aminbazar and Mirpur.

All along these rivers around the city, wherever they come across outlets for dumping of industrial waste, water there takes various colours due to toxicity.

Isharat Jahan, a teacher of urban planning and design at Buet who conducted a survey of the city's decreasing wetland, said this city is going to die if the water bodies including the wetlands are not saved.

Referring to her findings, she said in 1989 there was 28.5 percent wetland in the total Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) area of 1,528 square kilometres.

In 1999, the proportion of wetland including rivers, canals and flood flow zones dropped to 25 percent, and came down to 16.5 percent in 2005.

From 1989 to 1999 the drop rate was 502.4 hectares per year, but in the six years between 1999 and 2005 the size of the wetland area started to drop by a staggering 1,922 hectares a year.

"If the wetlands continue to disappear at this rate, there won't be any water body left by 2035," Jahan said.

"The government really needs to work if we want this city to be liveable," she added.