Inadequate water flow in the Teesta River, which enters Bangladesh from neighbouring India, is gradually destroying the agriculture and ecology of the adjacent northern districts.
The government’s irrigation project that depends on Teesta water is also facing hindrance because of the inadequate water flow in lean season.
Officials of the Water Development Board said such barren situation in the northern districts, including Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat and Rangpur, had been affecting cultivation and occupation of the people depending on the river to maintain livelihood.
Farmers were the worst sufferers as they could not continue irrigation activities smoothly for lack of water.
Iqbal Hossain, executive engineer of the WDB, told the Dhaka Tribune that water flow in the Teesta came down to only 500 cusec in the Teesta Barrage area during dry season against the 4,000 cusec necessary for the normal flow.
Moreover, the Teesta irrigation project could not be effective since it required at least 1,500 cusec water in lean period whereas there were only 500 cusec water in the river, he added.
On the consequence, Prof Masum A Patwary of the geography and environment science department at Begum Rokeya University said the Indian government had set up a barrage at Gojoldoba in 1977 and since then it had been one-sidedly withdrawing water from the river, causing sufferings to Bangladeshi farmers.
Apart from agriculture, the region’s water-based biodiversity, including fisheries resources, are also facing extinction as the river and its adjacent canals are drying up for lack of water.
Mainul Haq, a local from Gangachhara area of Rangpur said many fishermen had changed profession in recent years because of the decrease in fish population in the river.
Other aqua species, including the Ganges dolphin and Ghorial that were in plenty of number two decades back, were now on the verge of extinction, said Johur Miah, a resident of Nilphamari Sadar upazila.
Yesterday, several thousand farmers blocked the Rangpur-Dalia road for three hours as they had not got sufficient water in the Teesta irrigation canal for the last 15 days. A number of farmers said boro cultivation on about 40 hectares of land was under threat as they could not irrigate their paddy fields over a couple of weeks. They said cracks had developed in the fields for lack of water.
The farmers withdrew the blockade upon request from the administration.
