Sand traders offer free dredging

The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority is going to launch a Tk 6.6 crore project to dredge parts of the Buriganga river although some traders are offering to do it free of cost and would rather pay for the extracted sand.
The BIWTA officials have completely ignored the sand traders' offer, selected a private contractor for the job and forwarded the project file to the Board of Members for final approval. The BIWTA board may approve the project any day.
Preparedness of BIWTA for the project to be launched this month is so vague and mysterious that when asked, Chief Engineer (Dredging) Abdul Matin said they would return the money to the exchequer if they are able to sell the sand.
The Daily Star has obtained copies of the "detailed" project proposal and nowhere in it did the BIWTA officials mention about sale of this valuable commodity or "return of project money".
According to its own estimate, BIWTA envisages to extract 4 lakh cubic metres of "sand, soil, sludge and solid waste" from a stretch of 1,750 metres from Muslimbagh Primary School up to Barishur in Kamrangirchar.
The proposal at times highlights extraction of "sludge and solid wastes" -- a job that requires specialised grab crane dredgers and site for disposal of the waste -- not conventional cutter suction dredgers envisaged by the proposal.
Jahangir Alam, organising secretary of Bangladesh Bulkhead Labour Association, that controls over 5,000 bulkheads in sand trading, said the riverbed between Muslimbagh and Barishur contains top quality sand for which every trader would be interested.
"The government does not have to spend anything. We will pay for extraction and the sand at any market rate," Jahangir Alam said.
"The demand for the Buriganga sand is extremely high because buyers are everywhere along its banks. The bulkhead companies do not have to travel long distance with the commodity," Alam added.
"Hundreds of landowners and real estate developers will instantly grab the sand."
The sand extracted could be sold for over Tk 8 crore at Tk 25 per cubic metre [current price at extraction site], the chief engineer admitted when asked over the matter.
A source at the shipping ministry told The Daily Star the project was "cooked up" to steal money.
"The government is very serious about redressing the rivers and a lot of money will be pouring in, but a group of people are just waiting to grab it," said the official source. "The hush-hush about the sand revenue is a long practice in BIWTA because not many people are aware of this business," the source added.
The chief engineer told The Daily Star it is not in their practice to mention in the project proposal how much revenue could be earned from the commodity. "We do not mention anything about the revenue because it is not certain that we will be able to sell the sand," he said.
He however said since the matter has come to light his office would float an open tender to sell the sand.
The chief engineer approved the project's financial allocation, while the chairman of BIWTA gave administrative endorsement.
Md Abdul Maleque Miah, chairman of BIWTA, was taken by surprise when asked about the matter.
"If this sand is saleable, it will be sold. But we don't often get interested buyers," he said. He however defended taking up of the project at this cost saying, "the project was necessary to ascertain how much sand could be sold."
According to Jahangir, price of per square foot of sand in the Buriganga is Tk 1, while it is Tk 0.6 in the Meghna and Tk 0.4 in the Dhaleshwari. Per square foot of Buriganga sand is sold at Tk 2 at consumers' end for filling up of various development sites.
The selected contractor of the project has just imported a modern cutter suction dredger for the job. The sand extracted from the riverbed has to be deposited away from the river. Insiders say officials are now secretly "talking with real estate developers in the vicinity who are desperately trying to buy this valuable commodity to fill up vast low-lying land on the fringe of the city".
Deposition site of this sand away from the river is the most vital precondition for dredging, said Prof Abdul Matin, head of the water resources department at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet).
The project has so far no hydrographical designs, showing draft and status of the river. River dredging must be carried according to hydrographical design prepared on the basis of longitudinal profiling and elevation of the bed, Prof Matin added.
Both Abdul Maleque and Engineer Abdul Matin said they would soon prepare the hydrographical design.
Prof Mujibur Rahman of civil engineering department at Buet said dredging without proper survey and design might destabilise the slopes and result in bank erosion damaging the navigable channels and settlements.
The Tk 6.6 crore for the project originates from the allocation of Tk 19.7 crore for Climate Change Trust Fund for a project titled "Removal of Polythene and other Waste from the Beds of the Rivers Buriganga and Turag".