Flood Control in Bangladesh The New Nation July 30, 2004

By Abdul Mannan Talukder President Save the Humanity

Flood Control in Bangladesh
By Abdul Mannan Talukder

Regarding flood control in Bangladesh various circles have suggested for dredging the rivers in the country.

But I differ from them for the following reasons:

1. Most of the water of Nepal, Himalayas and India passes through Bangladesh. But the high lands of India, Nepal and the surface of the Himalayas are now being cultivated. As a result there is heavy soil erosion in these areas and heavy silting in the rivers of Bangladesh. The dredged place is immediately levelled due to heavy-silting of colossal soils drained from the Himalayas, Nepal and India. So it is futile to start dredging in the rivers of Bangladesh. The rivers have become almost useless. So it is imperative to find out alternative ways for draining out the water.

2. If at all dredging is adopted, a huge number of dredgers will be required. But Bangladesh is unable to purchase these dredgers even on credit.

3. Bangladesh has no petrol of her own. If the dredgers are procured through some unknown ways, Bangladesh would not be financially able to purchase the colossal quantity of petrol that would be required for operating the required number of dredgers.

4. Dredger drivers generally keep the metres disordered and manipulate in the maintenance of accounts of consumption of petrol. Usually around 20% of fuel is utilised in actual operation and the rest is misappropriated. As dredging is a sub-water work, it is not possible to check up whether the work has actually been done or not.

Under the above circumstances, it is not feasible to make flood control in Bangladesh with dredgers. As Bangladesh has nets by speed boats in the canals during the period of strong currents so the silting is carried away by the currents into the Bay of Bengal. Ground flshing by hand and other ways may also be allowed. Country boat transportation with poles may be introduced. Angling and other surface fishing should be prohibited.

In spite of the adoption of the anti-silting measures, if silting is found somewhere in a canal, fishing of that place may be sold to fishermen by closing the sluice gates/rubber dams from two sides. The fishermen would pump out the water and catch the fish. After the fishing is over, the soil of the canal may be sold to the inhabitants on both sides of the canals. Thus silting would be removed not only without cost; but also some revenue would be earned by the canal authority in this process.

Canals would not only drain out national and international excess water, the project would also be able to create millions of cheap housing plots on the canal banks with urban facilities for our people whose number will increase tremendously in the future. At present most of our people live scattered in water in villages in unhygienic conditions. It is not possible to extend gas, electric and water line connections in all the scattered flooded areas with economic justification. With the construction of canal-housing areas, if the present state facilities are closed in the scattered areas. the present facilities transferred to the canal areas and social securities given for the persons living in the canal areas only, the people themselves would shift to the canal areas. At present much of our crop fields are wasted for building new homestead and new ponds. Much of the crop fields is also wasted for construction of very high roads above the flood marks with lakes on both sides. Such wastage of land would be stopped if a network of south-faced canals is established. As there would not be much water in the fields within the canal areas during the rainy season, construction of high roads and high homesteads would not be required.

At present in many crop-fields, cultivators are not getting even one crop, if their crops are destroyed by early floods. If no money of its own to finance its flood control works in the traditional ways, I would suggest to adopt flood control measures commercially in a different way. Like the Manhattan Avenues in New York, a number of north-south canals may be dug straight from the northern border of Bangladesh to the south sea (Bay of Bengal) and re-excavate the existing canals diverting their flow towards the south with sluice gates at various places for reservation of water for irrigation during the dry season. With the soil of the canals, raised housing plots on both the banks of the canals may be prepared like the housing plots in the city of Venice. Half of the plots may be given to the extent of land as compensation and the remaining half sold to meet digging cost. Alternately khas lands may be allotted to the persons whose land would be acquired. If khas land is not available on their locality. distant khas land may be allotted to them to the extent of their satisfaction so that they can purchase same space of land near their locality by selling the allotted khas land. In order to raise the price of the plots, the following measures may be taken:

1. Gas, electric, and water lines may be set up through the housing areas.

2. Housing loans at concession may be given only for construction of houses on the banks of these canals.

3. Confessional commercial and industrial loans may be given to those who would select their sites on the banks of these canals.

4. Free education and training may be allowed only to the inhabitants on the banks of the canals.

5. Others.

Like the silting in the rivers, silting is bound to be in the bed of the canals also, if some counter actions are not taken. For this purpose the following measures may be taken:

In order to disturb the silting in the bed of the canals, fishery departments may establish a number of fish nurseries and fish ponds in the low lands beside the canals and roads and let loose the fishes in these canals during the rainy season and carry on sub-water ground fishing with ground flood control measures are adopted in the above way and sluice gates/rubber dams are established, cultivators would be able to cultivate their land at a low cost throughout the year and get at least three crops. At present they are harvesting 60 to 100 maunds of foodgrains per acre from one high yielding crop, if not destroyed by floods. If they can safely harvest three crops annually, the quantity of total crops wood be very large. At present scarcity of labour occurs for cultivating even a part of our land during the dry season. After flood control, if our entire land is cultivated throughout the year, nobody in the country would remain unemployed; rather there would be a severe scarcity of labour. In that case like the Arabian countries and Malaysia, Bangladesh would need to import manpower from abroad, not only for cultivation, but also for processing, finishing and marketing the produces.

Flood water brings huge soil into Bangladesh. If this soil is driven out in the ways suggested above and preserved near the sea-shore, there would be formation of vast new lands in a few years. If trees or branches of trees mixed with jute fibre are dropped under water at desirable places near sea-shore or near islands, formation of new islands or extension of existing islands would be very quick.

When the water flown from outside the country, carries mud, the sluice gates may be kept closed for few hours for innundation and fertilization of land in order to avoid use of chemical fertilizers.

At present most of the mills and factories in Bangladesh are run with imported raw materials. The country is short of foreign exchange. So it is not possible to ensure regular supply of raw materials required by our industry. If raw materials are imported, the mills and factories operate. When it is not possible to import the raw materials, they do not operate. Under such circumstances, it is not possible to accelerate industrialisation in the country, We do not have mineral resources. So we will have to produce sufficient quantity of raw materials in our agricultural lands. In the absence of flood control, we cannot form our industrial policy, because we do not know what sort of raw materials our land would produce after flood control. Our land is very fertile. The climate is such that various crops can be produced throughout the year. So it is expected that after flood control our land would produce abundant quantity of various raw materials including cotton and we would be able to determine our industrial policy accordingly. Many industrialised countries developed their agriculture first for production of raw materials and thereafter adopted the policy of acceleration of their industrial development. So first of all we are badly in need of flood control for our agricultural development.

Government may sell some of the state properties and set up a revolving fund with the sale proceeds for implementation of the programme. Friendly countries like USA and Saudi Arabia and international organisations like UNDP and OIC may also be approached for formation of the fund. A canal force like work-brigades may be formed with the help of the army with new recruitees and sparable soldiers to minimise the cost of flood control and irrigation.