Staff Reporter :
Leader of Bangladesh Nadi Bachao Andolon has underscored the need for conducting research on how to keep water in all rivers, including the Teesta, throughout the year and maintain uninterrupted navigation.
“We cannot sit idle on the agreement of the fair share of the transboundary rivers.
We need to conduct research on how we can prevent desertification by keeping water in all rivers, including Teesta. We need to protect the water bodies, including ten lakh ponds and over three thousand beels across the country,” they said.
The remarks came during a discussion titled “Importance of Implementing the Teesta Master Plan to Prevent Desertification in North Bengal,” organised by Bangladesh Nadi Bachao Andolon at the Dhaka Reporters Unity on Saturday.
The meeting was chaired by the central president of the organisation, Professor Md. Anwar Sadat.
Advocate Md. Anwar Hossain, the General Secretary of the organisation, moderated the event.
Dr. SM Shafiqul Islam Khan, the leader of the Teesta Bacho Andolon, along with Advocate Khandakar Aminul Haque Tutul, Md. Ikram Elahi Khan Saj, former Director of the River Research Institute Dr. Engineer Lutfur Rahman, and Dr. Mahsin Ali Mondal Prince, spoke on the occasion.
The speakers at the meeting stated that when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited Rangpur last year on August 2, she herself announced the implementation of the Teesta Master Plan Project.
This implementation of the promise is now a demand of time, a demand of the people of North Bengal, and a demand of the entire country, they said.
The speakers further stated that such megaprojects face many obstacles and limitations.
To overcome these, the government needs to expedite the implementation of this project, they said.
They pointed out that after the implementation of this project, it may be possible to take similar initiatives on several other rivers, such as the Korotoa in Panchagarh, the Gorai in Kushtia, the Baral in Pabna, the Old Brahmaputra in Mymensingh, and Yadukanta in the Sylhet region.
At the meeting, Professor Md. Anwar Sadat said that the work on the Teesta Irrigation Project, which has the capacity to hold 10,000 cusecs of water, began in 1979 to provide irrigation facilities on more than 540,000 hectares of land in Rangpur division.
However, due to the construction of the Gajoldoba Dam in India in 1998, which obstructed the flow of water into the Teesta barrage, only 500 cusecs of water are available for irrigation in the dry season, he said.
As a result, crop production has been affected due to the lack of irrigation facilities, he said.
Additionally, when all gates of the Gajoldoba Dam are opened during the rainy season, the Teesta River takes on a terrifying form, endangering nearly 20 million people on its banks, he said.
To mitigate this situation, the project aims to ensure water flow in the Teesta throughout the year, maintain the irrigation project, develop planned cities and industrial zones on both sides of the river, and ensure uninterrupted navigation, he recommended.
To achieve this, the length of the Teesta barrage will be reduced by half or one kilometre, according to the project plan. However, we demand that the reduction be between two and three kilometers, as he pointed out.
He, however, said that the Teesta Master Plan will create more than ten lakh jobs, reduce the frequency of floods and droughts in the region, recharge the underground water level, and thus save the northern region from desertification.
