Farmers protest stopping of Teesta water supply
Farmers protest stopping of Teesta water supply
Road barricade in Chirirbandar of Dinajpur
Farmers of Chirirbandar upazila blocked Dinajpur-Rangpur highway in Bekipul area for about four hours yesterday, demanding irrigation water from Teesta Barrage Project.
They started the agitation on Monday to press home their demand, said locals.
The farmers said they had been growing crops with the water supplied from Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) authorities through the project of Nilphamari district for long.
“But the water supply suddenly stopped a couple of weeks ago during the peak Irri-Boro season”, said Ehiya Hossain of Gochhahar village in the upazila.
“Newly planted boro planted seedlings are dying and many croplands have already dried up for lack of water supply for the last 15 days” said another farmer, Abdul Alim, adding that he brought about 2.5acres of land under boro farming this season.
Around 3000 acres of land in the upazila are being cultivated with water from the project. The farmers of the area have no alternative arrangement to irrigate their farmland as the PWD authorities had asked the farmers not to install deep tube well, said Abdur Rahim of Foteganjpur village.
Contacted, Motahar Hossain, chief of Irrigation department of BWDB in Syedpur of Nilphamari, said they stopped the water supply for not getting sufficient water from India at the moment.
The WDB needs at least 1500 cusec water for irrigation in place of the ongoing 300 cusec, said an official.
The growers later withdrew the barricade at 3.30pm following an assurance by Chirirbandar upazila nirbahi officer (UNB) of taking steps to arrange alternative source of water supply for irrigation.