The New Nation - Internet Edition

Our Correspondent, Barisal

The Barisal river port, the second largest in the country, is on the verge of closure as the Kirtonkhola River is rapidly loosing navigability.

Water transports after failing to anchor at the port jetties stranded on mid river for hours or failing to depart the port remained anchored at the jetty with hundreds of passengers on board, according to port sources.

Rafikul Islam, deputy director in charge of the Barisal river port, said after monitoring the situation and consulting the water transport owners and experts authority decided to shift Barisal launch station on urgent basis.

Accordingly it would shifted from present premises to BIWTA marine workshop jetty, about 500 yards south downstream within next 48 hours and start dredging to restore navigability and immediate dredging also planned. Costing of shifting and dredging would be funded by BIWTA.

'Already one dredger left Narayanganj for Barisal port on Tuesday morning and it will reach Barisal within Thursday. We would start emergency-basis dredging on next week to increase the depth of the water level of the river surrounding the jetty area for smooth anchoring of the river vessels,' the port officer said.

Port officials and launch company sources said the decision of shifting Barisal launch station was taken after water level of the Kirtonkhola River at the port side fell to less than four feet forcing water vessels to anchor about 10 to 15 meter away from the jetty.

MV Sundabon-7 and MV Tipu reached Barisal at early morning of Tuesday from Dhaka and succeeded to anchor at Barisal launch station jetty after about four hours of hard toil and high tide flow and loosing weight unloading huge number of passengers and goods by alternative ways.

MV Parabat-11 and MV Suravi-6 two Dhaka bound launches carrying about 3000 passengers on board failed to depart Barisal launch station due lack of navigability surrounding launch jetty on Monday night.

Most of the passengers later leaving the launch went to their destination by alternative way.

These two launch to maintain schedule of Dhaka end at last able to depart Barisal port jetty for Dhaka with a few number of passengers after tagged by other vessels and using high tide flows on Tuesday morning.

On other hand huge numbers of water transports have got stranded at Bamnir Char channel for hours for the last three days.

Sources at the Bangladesh Water Transport Authority said the water vessels plying on the Dhaka-Barisal-Khulna, Chittagong-Barisal-Khulna and other routes lie stranded for hours every day for poor navigability due to emergence of shoals in the different points of the river route and siltation adjacent port areas.