December to May, five months in a year the dwellers of Shreepure village under Jamalpure district do not get-driven water from their hand tube-wells. As soon as the deep tube-wells start withdrawing the ground water for agriculture, the water table goes down and causes the scarcity for drinking water for them. It happens there every year invariably. Same is the situation in the draught prone Barind-track zone in the northern part of the country. The ground water based agriculture system is causing desertification and scarcity for safe water in the northwest and north central zone of the country.
In the southwest part, Satkhira, Bagerhat and Khulna have the worst water crisis in the country. To fetch a pitcher of safe water the women and adolescent girls have to trek miles after miles. After that even it is not certain the water they have collected is safe. The safe water sources in this area have been depleted because of the saline water intrusion from shrimp cultivation.
The settlements in the Chittagong Hill Tracts [CHT] area are built up on the springs. Springs and streams, the main sources of water in CHT, are now drying up rapidly. Many of the villagers, mostly the innocent tribal people are now bound to abandon their age-old villages because of the water scarcity.
In the major towns and cities in the country large numbers are not getting pipe water because of the production shortage of the authorities. For instance, the Chittagong WASA has the capacity to produce only 30 per cent of the total demand, while Dhaka WASA is barely meeting 75 per cent of demands of the city dwellers. One of the major reasons of the water shortage in the cities and the towns is the unavailability of the ground water, the main source.
Besides, except for three hill districts, the ground water of other 61 districts is arsenic contaminated.
In brief, this is our water scenario, and unfortunately this scenario is getting worse day by day. Why does it happen so? The main cause is the injudicious use of our water resources. In operational term, we can say that it is the sheer lacking of an integrated water resource management.
Day by day we are becoming increasingly dependent on ground water for agriculture and household use. This dependency on the ground water can be easily reduced by creating watershed throughout the country. As Bangladesh is one of the countries in the world having the highest precipitation [206 cm/year], it has opportunity to preserve the rainwater in the artificial and natural reservoirs to use it during the dry season. Visiting the Philippines recently I have found watershed projects almost in each and every village. The Philippines government under "Community Based Integrated Watershed Management" is patronising it.
Our neighboring country India has set perhaps the best example of judicious use of water resources. Thousands of villages across the India are now under "watershed" scheme. The provincial government of Maharastra has made a law to make the citizens obligatory to harvest the rain water to raise the ground water table.
The drudgery of the women and the children in the southwest zone knows no bound due to the scarcity of sweet water. The age-old tradition of farming rice and other food crops are simply on the verge of extinction. The natural vegetation, flora and fauna are at stake as an outcome of absence of any water resource management. Yes, there was a traditional and community initiated water resource management in the southwestern costal area for hundreds of years. The villagers have been checking the saline water by building earthen dam on the rivers and canals.
Presently the situation is just reversed. The greedy rich people going from the towns and cities have inundated the whole area with saline water. Governments along with the big lending agencies like Asian Development Bank, World Bank are encouraging this. Without initiation of an integrated water resource management I see no possibilities of recovering the normal lives and livelihood in this area.
The marginalised section of the population in southwestern zone is simply struggling to live.
While the ground water table is dropping at an alarming rate [3.3 meters/year in Dhaka], the roads and lanes get flooded with the rain water. This rain water can easily be harvested to use at least for toilet flushing, washing and bathing. See the luxury! We are using the water of drinking quality for toilet flushing or car washing. By making law government can make it compulsory for the city people to harvest rain water.
Out of the 1500 rivers, more than 1250 have lost their existence. The rest 250 rivers are simply struggling for survival. The Ittefaq [July 3, 2004] reported that all 411 haors, 11 baors, and 29 bills located in the north-eastern part of the country were at stake. A newly constructed road that has gone cutting through the historic Chalan bill (Pabna-Natore) will cause the death for this natural water body. The Chalan bill works as a heat-buffer zone for the drought prone adjacent districts.
The one sided and isolated policies in the name of development are responsible for this.
Over the last two decades, scores of big bridges have been constructed over the important rivers including Padma, Meghna, Jamuna, Buriganga, Gomoti, Rupsha, Tista, Dhorla etc. These bridges have accelerated our speed, but expedited the process of sedimentation on the river bed. I feel shaky each time when I cross the Jamuna Bridge. Desert like shoal has appeared on both sides in the river as an effect of this bridge. Two big bridges - - the Lalan Shah and the Jamuna bridge -- are already a big threat for this river. The proposed Mawa Bridge over the same river will do the worst for this river.
As a part of implementing the so called Green Revolution agendum in 1960s' and under flood protection scheme after 1988, thousands of kilometers of embankment and dam have been constructed. These embankments and dams are hindering the natural flow of water and causing flood and many other ecological hazards. The constructed culverts and small bridges all over the country are simply innumerable and are causing death for the many rivers and canals as the water issues are absent in the mind of the designers, constructors and the policy makers.
Lives, economy and culture of the people of this country are deeply attached to the water resources. But we have been misusing it everyday in various ways. To save the water sources integrated water resource management is just a need of the hour. But, unfortunately it is missing in the water sector development. Though there are some policies already in the sector; we do not find their refection in the implementation.
Author Md. Firoj Alam
Published in the Daily Satar, Firday, March- 9, 2009
http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/03/09/d703091802120.htm
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