The ongoing project of the Sylhet City Corporation to reclaim and revive the city’s canals is facing hurdles which are slowing down its progress, said city corporation officials.
Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, Sylhet Mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury claimed the major problem was that the space at the canals’ entry and exit points was inadequate for the excavators.
“Encroachers illegally occupy most of these canals and are hampering their natural flow,” he said. “Many of these canals used to be 60-feet wide, but now some of them are as narrow as three feet. A few have narrowed down to even half a foot. At several points, their courses have changed.
“The mechanised excavators cannot enter the canals; if they can, they cannot get out of them. It is a big problem as we need those machines to remove the illegal structure as well as dredge the canals in order to bring back their natural water flow,” the mayor said.
At present, there are nine canals with 16 streams in Sylhet city. The canals – Malonichhora, Goalichhora, Gabhiar Khal, Dhupachhora, Holdichhora, Kalibarichhora, Mongolichhora, Juginichhora and Bhubichhora – amount to a length of 32km. The city’s drainage system is entirely dependent on these canals.
Due to the insufficient water flow in these canals, Sylhet city often gets waterlogged when it rains, causing the immense suffering of the city-dwellers. The city gets submerged in knee-deep water even in moderate rain.
Before this project, another plan to reclaim the canals was undertaken by the city corporation in 2010, when Sylhet City Awami League President Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran was mayor.
However, the plan did not come to fruition due to mismanagement as well as intervention by the local influentials.
The project was revived last year, when BNP-backed Ariful was elected as the city’s mayor. After taking charge of office, he initiated massive drives to demolish illegal structures on the banks of these canals on October 24 last year.
“We have already reclaimed Goalichhora, Malonichhora, Dhupachhora, Gabhiar Khal and Holdichhora,” the mayor said. However, reviving Gabhiar Khal was tricky.
“The stretch of Gabhiar Khal between Sheikhghat and Laldighirpar areas was filled up and under personal ownership. But the owners, Akbul Hossain and Abul Hossain, residents of Laldighirpar, donated the land when they learned about the city corporation project,” the mayor said.
“We used 1,000 feet of the land to build an eight-foot wide canal to connect Gabhiar Khal to the Surma River,” he said.
“Similarly, to recover Holdichhora, we acquired land and built a 1,800-foot long, 15-foot wide connecting canal to link it with the Surma. We also constructed U-type reinforced cement concrete pillars to prevent illegal constructions from being built in the canal,” he said.
The UNDP funded the recovery of Holdichhora, the mayor added.
“Because of our initiative, there has been no waterlogging in the city this year,” he said, adding that no such initiative has been taken since 1956.
Noor Azizur Rahman, acting chief engineer at Sylhet City Corporation, said the drive to remove the illegal structures would continue, and they had plans in this regard.
However, the chief engineer also spoke about the obstacles hampering the project’s progress, specifically mentioning waste dumping in the drains.
“People dump waste in the drains, which clogs them up and disrupts the flow. It also creates problems in cleaning up the canals,” he said.
Dr Towfiq M Seraj, managing director of Sheltech (Pvt) Ltd, the urban design planner of the Sylhet City Corporation, said the local influential people also caused hindrances in the project.
“The authorities should handle it strictly,” he said.
