A long-delayed river dredging project has left hundreds of thousands of Boro farmers in Sunamganj facing a triple crisis of flash floods, waterlogging and irrigation shortages.
Farmers say the failure to restore the drainage capacity of the region's rivers is delaying rice transplantation, creating irrigation problems during the dry season and increasing the risk of crop losses from early monsoon rains.
Sunamganj is one of the country's major Boro-producing districts. About 350,000 farmers cultivate Boro rice on around 223,000 hectares of land every year. In a normal season, the district produces approximately 1.15 million tonnes of paddy, equivalent to about 950,000 tonnes of rice.
Despite decades of investment in flood-protection embankments, the lack of regular river dredging has severely disrupted the natural drainage system of the haor region. Farmers say embankments alone cannot protect their crops if rivers and canals cannot drain water efficiently.
The district has witnessed devastating flash floods in 1990, 1994, 2004, 2010, 2016, 2017 and 2022, when breaches in crop-protection embankments allowed upstream water to inundate vast areas of farmland. The losses ran into thousands of crores of taka, affecting hundreds of thousands of farmers.
The crisis has become more complex in recent years. In 2024, water levels in the haors and adjoining rivers remained almost the same, resulting in severe waterlogging that submerged immature Boro rice on around 80,000 hectares of farmland.
Farmers say the problem now occurs in two stages. During the dry season, sediment-filled riverbeds hold little water, creating an acute irrigation shortage. During the pre-monsoon period, the same rivers fail to drain water quickly, causing waterlogging that can destroy standing crops.
Sofor Uddin, 66, a farmer from Astama village in Joykalas Union of Shantiganj upazila, said farmers are increasingly trapped between late transplantation and early flooding.
“Water does not drain from the haor into the rivers on time, so transplantation starts about 15 days late. By then, irrigation water becomes scarce. Then even a little rain at the beginning of Baishakh can submerge the immature crop,” he said.
Abdur Rahman, a farmer from Dariyabaz village in Mollapara Union of Sunamganj Sadar upazila, said he cultivated six bighas of land with borrowed money last season, only to lose the entire crop to waterlogging after rainfall at the beginning of Baishakh.
“For a farmer, the loss of one crop can create a debt that takes years to repay,” he said.
According to Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), Sunamganj has 106 rivers and river channels across its 12 upazilas. Although most carry substantial volumes of water during the monsoon, around 70 become largely dry during the dry season.
The district's location near the Meghalaya hills of India further increases its vulnerability. Heavy rainfall in the upstream hills sends large volumes of water downstream within a short period, triggering flash floods. At the same time, sediment carried by the runoff gradually raises riverbeds, reducing their capacity to carry and drain water.
Bijon Sen Roy, former general secretary of Haor Bachao Andolon, said eight transboundary rivers—including the Chilai, Khasiyamara, Jadukata, Chela, Sonali Chela and Maula—along with more than 100 hill streams carry large volumes of water from Meghalaya into Sunamganj during the monsoon.
He said water from much of Sylhet also flows through the Surma and Kushiyara rivers before reaching the Meghna through the Dhanu River. Years of inadequate dredging have severely disrupted this interconnected drainage system.
“During the monsoon, the rivers are overflowing, but in the dry season many of them become almost completely dry. This indicates that the natural water-management system has been seriously damaged,” he said.
Retired professor Chittaranjan Talukdar, a former president of the Communist Party of Bangladesh's Sunamganj district unit, said river dredging has repeatedly been promised after major floods but has not been implemented on the required scale.
Md Obaidul Haque Milon, general secretary of the Sunamganj Haor and River Protection Movement, also called for immediate implementation of the dredging project.
“Authorities talk about river dredging whenever there is a disaster, but years pass without the project reaching the implementation stage,” he said.
The BWDB has proposed a major dredging project to address the problem.
BWDB Sunamganj Executive Engineer Mamun Hawlader said the proposal, titled ‘Improvement of Early Flood Management and Integrated Water Resources Management in the Haor Region,’ has been sent to the Ministry of Water Resources for approval.
The proposed Tk 1,429.84 crore project includes dredging 304 kilometres of 13 rivers, including the Surma, Kushiyara, Baulai, Dhanu, Ghura-utra, Upper Meghna, Old Surma, Chamti Darain, Abua, Patlai, Kaunai and Someshwari.
The proposed implementation period is 2026–2029, but the project has yet to receive approval.
“If approved, the project will improve water drainage, reduce waterlogging and help address irrigation shortages in the haor region,” Hawlader said.
Prabir Kumar Goswami, supervising engineer of the Water Development Board's North-Eastern Regional Office, said Sunamganj's location at the foot of the Meghalaya hills makes it naturally vulnerable to flash floods and water-management problems.
He said huge quantities of sediment are carried downstream every year by water flowing from the Indian hills, gradually raising the beds of rivers, canals and haors.
“Years of inadequate river dredging have made the problem increasingly severe,” he said.
With the next Boro season approaching, farmers fear that the unresolved dredging issue will once again expose them to the same cycle of delayed transplantation, irrigation shortages and waterlogging. They are urging the government to approve and implement the proposed project before another season of crop losses begins.
