Farmers have harvested 90% of the Boro paddy in flood-hit haor areas, AKM Enamul Haque Shamim, the deputy minister for water resources, said on Friday.
"The remaining 10% paddy will be harvested soon," he told reporters, after inspecting the progress of work on the protection project of Padma River’s Naria-Jajira point.
Due to timely steps of the government, the farmers of haor areas have avoided a huge loss, he claimed.
“There are 222,805 hectares of haor across the country. Of these, only 5,765 hectares of haor crops have been damaged,” he added.
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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is inquiring about the situation in the haors regularly. The Ministry of Water Resources, the Water Development Board, the district administration and the Agriculture Extension Department are working together as per the PM's directions, Shamim said.
For the sake of the haor people, holidays of the officials and employees of the WDB have been canceled. The ministry is working on adopting a plan to solve the problems in haor areas permanently, said the junior minister.
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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced the implementation of Delta Plan-2100 to build a developed Bangladesh in the future. The Ministry of Water Resources will implement 80% of the work of this master plan. “If this master plan is implemented, there will be no river erosion and waterlogging in the whole country,” he added.
Earlier, Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque said that the government would take steps to provide incentives to the flood-hit farmers in the haor areas of Sunamganj since Boro is the only crop in the haor areas.
