Farmers in Rajshahi and Naogaon say they are not benefiting from government climate change adaptation schemes because ruling party strongmen have effectively taken over the projects.
A visit to a number of climate adaptation projects by the Dhaka Tribune revealed that local elites belonging to the ruling party had monopolised the benefits of canal re-excavation projects.
Canal re-excavation provides much needed supplementary irrigation to this dry region, known as the Barind tract, that suffers from depleted groundwater reserves.
Some 20,000 farmers dependent on deep tube wells could have benefited from supplementary irrigation this season if they had fair access to it.
The Dhaka Tribune found such complaints by farmers to be common at several projects financed by the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT).
In Bianabona village in Godagari upazila of Rajshahi district, supplementary irrigation for the Aman paddy by re-excavating canals is being undertaken by the Barind Multi-purpose Development Authority (BMDA), a government agency.
Local farmers said people connected to the ruling party had effectively taken control of the benefits of the project.
Farmer Farque Hossain of Bianabona village, said the three shallow machines in the area were being run by ruling party men.
Sirajul Islam, another farmer, said there was not enough water to support his five bighas of land as he waited for deep tube well water.
“The paddy is not in good shape. I do not know if even 12 maunds of rice can be harvested per bigha of land this year,” he said. Last year he harvested 80 maunds of rice from the same plot of land.
One maund, the local unit of mass for bulk agricultural produce, is just over 37 kilogrammes.
Kristo Kujur, 38, from nearby Chaitanyapur, another village in Godagari upazila, said: “I do not get water from deep tube wells when it is needed.”
Chaitanyapur’s farmers said local strongmen had grabbed the deep tube well which was intended to irrigate about 500 bighas of land.
A bigha is equivalent to 0.13378 hectares.
The farmers said that a lack of fair access to water could destroy this season’s harvest, meaning lower yields for farmers and higher prices for consumers.
Many farmers were not aware that the irrigation schemes in their areas were adaptation projects financed by the BCCT.
The target area, the Barind tract in Rajshahi and Naogaon, is the country’s most drought-prone region. It is extremely vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
In the remote area of Godagari upazila, 55 kilometres north-west of Rajshahi city, the BMDA claimed to have re-excavated a 5km canal, 12 metres wide and three metres deep to irrigate 900 hectares of land.
Local farmers disputed this, saying they had seen only 3km of canal re-excavated.
The project cost Tk1.2 crore.
Farmers told the Dhaka Tribune that ruling party strongmen control access to the canal and bar outsiders from fishing in it or using its water to irrigate their paddy fields.
Farmers said they are forced to use groundwater extracted by deep tube wells for irrigation.
But it is not easy to get the water and it is getting harder with the passage of time.
The average queue for deep tube well use is 100 to 150 farmers per well. Continuous load-shedding adds to the difficulties and puts the paddy fields in danger, they said.
The BMDA claims it has re-excavated just under 7 hectares of land at Kusum Kunda in Porsha upazila in Naogaon district for supplementary irrigation at a cost of Tk2 crore.
During a recent visit to this project area, the Dhaka Tribune found similar allegations surrounding the project.
An ongoing baseline study on the project at Godagari upazila conducted by Transparency International of Bangladesh (TIB), found that 95% of people said they were not informed about the project. Some 52% said they knew nothing about the project. The rest say they only found out when the excavation work was started by the contractors.
Most of the poor and ultra-poor, representing 88% of the population of the area, said they had not been asked by the implementing agency for opinions, according to the study.
Some 58% said there was no opportunity for local farmers to be involved in monitoring the project.
The farmers said they did not dare to monitor the project out of fear of local ruling party political elites who they alleged received illegal benefits from the contractors.
Barind tract groundwater
“The groundwater recharge rate in these flood-free areas is very slow because the soil is very dense compared to other regions of the country”, Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan, professor of geology and mining at Rajshahi University, said.
“The only source of groundwater is rain. But it can hardly enter into the ground. Only 10% of the rainfall goes underground,” he added.
There are 60,000 to 70,000 deep tube wells in the region for irrigation which has caused groundwater levels to decrease. But demand for water continues to rise, Professor Sarwar said.
“Groundwater levels in 2002-03 came down to such a low level that it is yet to recover,” he added.
Md Abdur Rashid, superintending engineer of BMDA at Barind Bhaban located on Cantonment Road in Rajshahi, said the pressures on groundwater in the Barind tract was increasing every day.
He rebuffed the farmers’ allegations, saying: “All three projects were implemented properly.”
“Our responsibility is only to dig ponds and re-excavate canals in Khas lands. The rest of it is for the ministry of land to take care of,” he said.
Besides implementing agencies, the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust has its own mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating climate change trust fund projects.
Headed by a director, BCCT has a monitoring and evaluation branch that receives monthly progress reports from its project directors, sends inspection team for field visits and convenes regular monitoring meetings with project directors.
But it does not have a culture of disclosing monitoring and evaluation reports, said Jane Alam, assistant director for protocol.