Shuvadya Canal: RHD frustrates revival effort
While the government plans to restore Shuvadya Canal in Keraniganj with a Tk 1,200 crore project, one of its own departments appeared to be a major obstacle.
The Roads and Highway Department (RHD) has built three large pillars in the middle of the canal for a bridge, which block the waterway.
The RHD is building the bridge just beside a narrow bridge at Kadamtali Khalpar area on the Dhaka-Mawa highway under the Dhaka-Padma Bridge-Bhangha Expressway Project. The department is upgrading the 54.23km highway to dual carriageway.
Two pillars of the existing bridge are on the banks of the canal, once considered a lifeline of Keraniganj on the outskirts of the capital.
During a recent visit, The Daily Star correspondents found that the contractor blocked the canal with a dam to construct the pillars. Other construction materials were also seen piled up beside the pillars.
State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid, at a programme on December 19, blasted RHD officials for building the pillars in the canal.
Talking to The Daily Star over phone after the programme, Nasrul said, “We are going to re-excavate the canal and construct bank protection work under a project.”
The water resources ministry has already taken up the project, now awaiting approval of the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec), he said.
People will be able to use the canal as an alternative route to reach Dhaka from Bikrampur of Munshiganj quicker, once the project is completed.
But the pillars were built in the middle of the canal and it will hamper boat movement, he said.
“They [RHD] should have considered it when designing the bridge and now they are saying that they will demolish it,” he lamented.
Nasrul, also the lawmaker of the constituency concerned, said that the prime minister gave directives not to construct any bridge without the adequate height clearance so that the waterways remain usable. But these pillars will block the waterway.
Abdus Sabur, additional chief engineer (Dhaka Zone) of the RHD, said they stopped the work more than one month ago after receiving a complaint from the local lawmaker.
“We will demolish the pillar soon,” Sabur, who is the RHD project director, told The Daily Star on December 22.
“The implementation authority has already submitted a revised drawing to us and work for demolition of the pillars will start as soon as we get approval from the high-ups,” he added.
Shahin Ahmed, chairman of Keraniganj Upazila Parishad, said, “We have heard that a decision was made to demolish the pillars. If the pillars remain in the canal it will block the waterway.”
THE CANAL
Shuvadya canal connects two rivers – the Dhaleshwari and the Buriganga.
After a bridge was built in 2004 near Kaliganj, the water flow in the canal dropped and it soon dried up completely.
Around 5,000 small garment factories at Shuvadya union are also responsible for the drying up of the canal as these factories had been dumping their waste in the canal over the years, locals said.
The Water Development Board, with assistance of the armed forces and the district administration, excavated the canal and conducted drives against illegal encroachers in early 2008. The canal was reopened to the public for communication on June 16, 2008.
But people kept on dumping trash into the canal that soon blocked the waterway.
Four years ago, a smaller-scale re-excavation effort was made to revive the waterway.
But now a large portion of the canal’s bed near Kadamtali Khalpar area has dried up due to indiscriminate dumping of solid waste. Things turned worse after the three pillars were built blocking the canal, said locals.
Mohammad Shamim, a resident of Jhaubari of Dakkhin Keraniganj, said, “I have seen boat races in the canal after the renovation work around four years ago. But things are back to square one as people started dumping waste in the canal again.”
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