Asia Times: Rivers washing away Bangladeshi farmers' hopes


	September 12, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Rivers washing away Bangladeshi farmers' hopes
By Tabibul Islam

DHAKA - Rahimuddin now pulls a rickshaw in the busy streets of Dhaka and goes home to one of the crowded slums here. But just a decade ago, he was a modest landowner in Jamalpur district of Bangladesh, where he lived and worked as a farmer. He lost that life almost in a flash when his farmland was swept away by the raging waters of an overflowing river.

Erosion, sometimes called the "silent disaster", is one of the perennial scourges of this country. It occurs year-round, but especially wreaks havoc with the lives of millions of people of riverine Bangladesh every summer.

Each year, some 10,000 hectares of land are washed away by the mighty rivers, rendering at least half a million Bangladeshis landless and homeless. One study conducted by the Bangladesh Development Partnership Center says that between 1992 and 1994 alone, erosion by 250 big and small rivers and streams displaced some 3.5 million people.

The erosion of arable land and homesteads is one of the main reasons why more and more rural people are being rendered landless at a seemingly faster clip each year. Erosion is also part of the reason for the poverty of a large number of people in the countryside. In 1971, only 35 percent of the total population of Bangladesh was landless. That figure has now doubled. Another telling fact is that in Dhaka, about 19 percent of the 3.5 million slumdwellers were victims of erosion.

The cases of the coastal islands of Swandip and Hatiya also show just how much damage erosion can do. About 300 years ago, Swandip island was about 1,080 square kilometers. Today, it measures a mere 238 sq kms. In 1940, the total area of Hatiya island was 1,020 sq km. Now it covers less than 500 sq kms.

Considering the enormous losses of property, the government in 1993 identified erosion as a national problem. So far, though, no one has come up with a real solution to it. Water experts say the riverbanks of Bangladesh are alluvial and hence susceptible to erosion. Hydrological and geological factors are also major contributors to this natural calamity.

According to experts, the width and depth of rivers in different seasons, accretion of new lands due to heavy siltation and instability of the soil give rise to erosion. Other experts, meanwhile, say that the construction of barrages and sluice gates on the upstreams of the rivers in neighboring India has intensified the erosion problem in Bangladesh. Indeed, a report by the Jahangirnagar University says 210 sub-districts out of total 464 face the menace of erosion.

In addition, the Bangladesh Water Development Board, which is responsible for the construction of embankments to contain floods and combat erosion, says that 85 towns and riverports of Bangladesh are now under threat as well. Notable among the towns facing the threat of erosion are Chandpur, Sirajgon, Khulna, Rajshahi, Comilla, Kurigram, Gaibandah, Tangail and Faridpur.

Experts note that erosion not only renders people homeless, but also contributes to other social problems. After having been robbed by nature of the land they had tilled and depended on for their livelihood, many people are unable to find other means of income in the countryside and therefore migrate to the cities. There they compete with millions of others for the lowliest of jobs that earn them less than their daily needs. As a result, many of them suffer from malnutrition and succumb more easily to various illnesses.

Many families also have to resort to making children work for pay. This in turn discourages the children to go to school. Sometimes, however, the children have no more schools to go to because of erosion. Studies say that nearly 100 primary schools are lost in the rivers annually due to erosion. Anecdotal evidence shows that once a primary school is washed away by the swirling current of a river it takes several years to build a new one at a new place. More often than not, the children affected by the unscheduled and long break in their education would stop school altogether.

Just last week, media reports here noted how seven major rivers have caused erosion all over the southern Barisal district in the past year, rendering about 100,000 people there homeless. Thousands of hectares of cultivable land, numerous businesses, schools, roads and embankments were also washed away.

Observers have criticized the Bangladesh Water Development Board for confining its plans and programs to saving the big towns from the threat of erosion. But officials retort that critics need a reality check, pointing out that billions of US dollars would be needed to check the gigantic problem of erosion permanently. A senior official of the flood ministry also admits that Bangladesh has neither the means nor the expertise to make a dent on the problem of erosion. Moreover, active cooperation from India and Nepal is essential to tackling the problem.

All these are partly why the Awami League government, which stepped down just last July 15 to make way for a neutral caretaker government in preparation for the next elections, concentrated instead on how to help erosion victims back on their feet. A program styled as "Ghore Fera (Return Home)" for Dhaka slumdwellers, for instance, gave preference to those who wound up in the city after losing their homes to erosion.

Under the program, which is ongoing, collateral-free loans ranging from US$100 to 500 are offered to each slum family in exchange for returning to its original village home and settling there permanently. So far 5,000 families have joined the program.

(Inter Press Service)