"Around 20 kilometers of the 32-kilometre canal is encroached where multi-storeyed private buildings were constructed, blocking free flow of water into the Lakhya river," said an official at the DND pump house at Shimrail of Narayanganj.

Illegal establishments including residential houses, mills and factories have been built over the years in the area. As the major portion of the canal is occupied, the water mixed with household and industrial wastes remains stagnant.

The entire DND area has become a vast water body. Houses and educational institutions in the area have gone under water. Water entered the premises of many mills and factories although temporary walls have been erected to protect them from water.

Gas supply has been snapped in many houses that further worsened the sufferings of the people. Boats have become the lone mode of transport for them. Many people have left the area and taken shelter in their relatives' houses in other areas.

The 32-km DND embankment was constructed during 1962-1968 to bring around 5,680 hectares of land under an irrigation project. Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) is the authority to supervise the project and the pump house.

"We are taken hostage by some influential people who filled up the main canal trapping us in this unbearable waterlogging. We suffer from this disaster in every rainy season," said Kabir Hossain, a resident of Sherulia village in the area.

"The land grabbers are responsible for this situation. Many of the residents in the area have constructed concrete buildings, filling up the canal," Kabir said.

A number of multi-storeyed residential buildings have been constructed in Shimrail, Mijimiji and Siddhirganj areas. Three six-storey buildings were built in Shimrail, one five-storey and four three-storey buildings were built in Mijimiji and Siddhirganj.

"The construction of Dhaka-Chittagong highway also created obstacle. When the highway was built over some canals during Ershad regime, a number of box culverts were constructed to dispose water. But these culverts are unable to evacuate water from the area," a senior official of BWDB said.

Around 300 feet wide main drainage canal is connected with five major canals to dispose water to Shitalakhya river. The five canals are also connected with a number of small channels. The major and small canals have also been encroached at different points in Pagla Khal, Isdair, Pitapul, Delpar and Jalkuri.

"We are now evicting encroachers from the channel-1 near the pump house at Shimrail. We will evict all the encroachers in phases in order to save the people and the locality," said Md Iqbal Hussain, executive engineer of BWDB.

The pump house officials said water level in the DND channel this monsoon rose by four feet. Usually, the height of water remains around six feet in the channel but after heavy rain a couple of weeks ago the water level rose to around 10 feet.

"40-year-old pumps are being operated there for draining out water. These are not sufficient. We will have to install eight more pumps to pump out water from the waterlogged area. The demand is three times higher than the capacity of the existing four pumps," said Md Belayat Hossain, a sub-assistant engineer in charge of the pump house.

The four pump machines with the capacity of 128cusec water were installed in 1965. "It has become very difficult to run these pumps continuously because of frequent power disruptions and voltage fluctuations," Belayat added.