Villagers themselves build embankment finally
The people of Gobordhan village in Mohishkhocha union in Aditmari upazila under Lalmonirhat district have joined voluntary service to construct a three kilometre long embankment to protect their life and property from erosion and flooding by the Teesta River.
About 40 per cent work of the embankment has been completed till yesterday as about two thousand people, both male and female, started work for the embankment on Saturday morning following suggestion and encouragement by Lalmonirhat Deputy Commissioner (DC) Md Ala Uddin Fakir.
People hope they will be able to finish the work within four days.
For years the villagers have placed demand to Water Development Board, upazila administration and political leaders to take steps for building the embankment but to no effect.
Finding no alternative, affected people themselves started working to construct the three kilometre earthen embankment through voluntary service.
Gobordhan, a village on the Teesta River, is vulnerable to flood and erosion, and about five thousand people of one thousand families living there have to struggle with poverty.
Nurul Islam, 45, a villager of Gobordhan said, “I cultivate different kinds of crops on my five bighas of land but floodwater and erosion often destroy it. All the villagers face the same problem.”
“We got encouragement from the DC to render voluntary service for building the three-kilometre embankment to protect our village,” said a villager.
“The embankment will save the villagers at Gobordhan from floodwater and river erosion. They will also get bumper crops from their cultivable land. The embankment will help to revive the lost land devoured by Teesta erosion in previous years. People should come forward to develop their condition by working on their own,” said Lalmonirhat DC Md Ala Uddin Fakir.
Several villagers said some NGOs active in the village received handsome amount of money from the donors on the name of developing the life of ultra-poor people but donors' fund hardly come to any help for them.
Villagers have demanded construction of a permanent embankment to save their houses, cultivable lands and assets.
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