Dhaka rivers to get thinner

The Turag River is demarcated with pillars excluding the foreshore in violation of a High Court order.Photo: SK Enamul Haq

The rivers of Dhaka will shrink further as the district administrations have demarcated those excluding the foreshores, in deviation from a High Court judgment.
This will make way for permanent private ownership of the foreshores, and encourage river grabbers to encroach upon those foreshores, said officials of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA).
"Rivers without foreshores will be reduced to large-size drains," said a top official of Dhaka River Port, requesting anonymity.
BIWTA pays the district administrations concerned yearly fees for a total of 1,555 acres of foreshores along 110-kilometre long stretch of the rivers Buriganga, Turag, Balu, and Shitalakkhya.
According to an official estimate, the Shitalakkhya river alone will lose 1,860 acres of land comprising 595 acres of its foreshores, and the rest from its existing waterway due to the latest demarcation, said a BIWTA official requesting anonymity.
Estimates of how much land the other three rivers will lose was not readily available.
The shipping minister is scheduled to formally launch setting up of boundary pillars along the rivers from the Gazipur bank of the Balu river today.
Following a Daily Star-Channel i media campaign and a writ petition to save the four Dhaka rivers from mindless grabbing and pollution, the High Court (HC) in June 2009 came upwith a judgment and directions including demarcation of the rivers with pillars, building of walkways, and plantation of trees on the banks.
If the boundary pillars are put along the lean water flow in line with the current demarcation, then building of walkways and plantation of trees as per the HC direction have to be done by earth filling of the rivers, according to BIWTA officials.
The HC asked the deputy commissioners (DC) of Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Munshiganj to carry out a survey of rivers on the basis of the records of both Cadastral Survey (CS) of 1913, and Revised Survey (RS) of 1983, to ascertain the original positions of the rivers, and demarcate them.
M Shamsur Rahman, DC of Narayanganj, said they however carried out the survey only on the basis of RS records.
"We did not take the foreshores into consideration while carrying out the survey," he said.
Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela), which is an active party to the battle for river conservation, said it is simply a deviation from the HC direction.
"Foreshores are integral to the basic understanding of a river," she said.
Foreshore is defined in the port rules as soil lying between the low water mark of normal tide during dry (spring) season and high water mark during normal monsoon tide. It is vital for conservation, port operation, and navigability of a river.
River bed is defined as soil and sub-soil habitually covered by the water of a navigable waterway, and extends to the high water mark on both banks.
And river bank is defined as the land that confines water of a river channel and extends above high water mark.
The HC in its judgment said primarily a river consists of a bed, foreshores, and banks.
Narayanganj district administration in the latest survey showed the Shitalakkhya river as narrower than what it is in the maps prepared jointly with BIWTA as per CS records in 2001, the sources said adding that the 2001 map included the foreshores.
The river boundaries will be pushed far into the existing waterways as a result of surveying the rivers only based on RS records, said BIWTA officials.
The authorities evicted a total of 840 illegal structures from the Shitalakkhya as per the 2001 map, and reclaimed a significant amount of foreshores.
Narayanganj district administration in the latest survey report identified a total of 3,010 structures in the Shitalakkhya within Narayanganj port areas based on the CS record, but according to the RS record the survey found only 302 structures. And the administration chose to go by the result based on the RS record.
In case the river course shifts from where it is shown in the CS map and expands its area due to erosion and land-formation, the extended area will be part of the river and remain in government ownership, the HC said in its judgment.
In such a case, the river area will include the extended part, foreshores and the banks, the court said.
Gazipur district administration already set up a good number of boundary pillars along the waterline of the dry-season lean flow of the rivers Balu and Turag.
Kamal Uddin Talukder, DC of Gazipur, said, "We considered the existing line of flowing water as the boundaries of the rivers."
He also acknowledged that the HC in its verdict clearly defined what a river is.
As to why the district administration did not follow the court's definition, he said there might have been some mistakes.
BIWTA already formally wrote to the district administration complaining about the exclusion of the foreshores, and a survey will be done again to ascertain the foreshore areas, Kamal Uddin added.
It is neither saving rivers nor compliance with the HC directions, said Prof Muzaffer Ahmad, a pioneer in save the rivers campaign.
Mohibul Haque, DC of Dhaka, said the HC verdict clearly mentions foreshores as integral to rivers.
"There are many flaws in the survey to protect the rivers, as in many cases river areas have been drawn without going to the spot," said Haque.
He said he is checking the flaws in the survey, and keeping foreshores under consideration in demarcating the rivers Buriganga and Turag.
While the authorities identified 4,019 structures within the rivers of Dhaka port area, they interestingly only found 11 such structures in the rivers Balu and Turag in Gazipur under Tongi port area.
But immediately after the current government had taken over, following the prime minister's direction another survey by the same district administration in Gazipur had identified 123 such illegal structures within the foreshores of the rivers Balu and Turag there, said a BIWTA official on condition of anonymity.
Mahbubul Alam, director (Port) of BIWTA, said on Saturday that they wrote to the DC of Gazipur and the shipping secretary the week before about the matter, and would write to the Narayanganj DC in a couple of days.