Save waterlogged Bhabadah

Bhabadah Water Mitigation Movement Committee yesterday submitted a memorandum to the deputy commissioner of Jessore with a call to the government to implement tidal river management (TRM) immediately to save the people of Bhabadah from waterlogging.

The affected areas are Abhaynagar, Monirampur, Keshabpur and Jessore Sadar upazilas and Phultala and Dumuria in Khulna and Tala of Satkhira.

At least 10 lakh people of 200 villages will be directly affected due to the waterlogging. Croplands and schools, colleges and madrasas will go under water if TRM is not implemented immediately, said Ranjit Bawali, convener of the committee.

Earlier, the committee announced an agitation programme from July 25 to August 20 to press its demand.

As part of the agitation programme, the committee yesterday submitted the memorandum.

People, living in the waterlogged Bhabadah area, continued agitation for long to press home their five-point demand.

The demands include dredging at Bhabadah point, re-excavation of Amdanga canal, opening Bhabadah sluice gate and making it fully functional, implementation of Tidal River Management (TRM) Project in Beel Kapalia area and renovation of damaged roads, educational institutions and different religious establishments.

Bhabadah's water-logging problem began in the early 1980s when all its rivers started drying up, after the construction of embankments and sluice gates in the region. The embankments and sluice gates were built to prevent saline water from intruding into the beels. The saline water stopped, and so did the natural flow of currents in the process.

Successive governments have taken up various projects worth hundreds of crore of taka to solve this, but they only brought brief relief.