The New Nation - Internet Edition

Our Correspondent, Barisal

Major parts of the waterways of Barisal division have already lost its navigability at eleven major points due to formation of numerous shallow water shoals and water level of the rivers going down creating problems for safe navigation.

BIWTA has only seven age-old dredgers to keep this long waterway network navigable with insufficient budget.

So river communication of 21 districts of south and western region including Barisal, Khulna, and Mongla river ports with mid and eastern part of the country including Dhaka and Chittagong and other major river ports is facing catastrophe. Operators of waterway transports blamed successive governments for turning a blind eye to the gravity of the problem for years while navigability of rivers have declined drastically on major routes blocking movement of vessels.

Since last four days hundreds of water transports plying on major river routes connecting east and northern parts with south and western parts of the country and carrying thousands of passengers stranded in different channels and points for hours due to narrowness and less navigability at the time of low tides.

The Kirtonkhola river sour riding Barisal Port, Ganeshpura river near Char Mohima of Sreepur- Mehendiganj, Lohalia river in Patuakhali Port area, Barguna, Shaheberhat, Saestabad, Bukhainagor River crossing channel, Badartuni-Hizla-Muladi channel, Maskata- Meherndiganj river, Char Kasrupi and Chandra Mohan channel of Bhola are rapidly losing navigability threatening the river routes with immediate closer.

Now at the time of low tide only six foot water remain in the river and stranded vessels have to wait for hours for high tide. With the advent of the winter season, the rivers are getting narrower and numerous new chars are raising their heads.

The dredging programme of BIWTA doing without any sustainable master plan and also often disrupted due to fund and dredger crisis. Majibur Rahman, master of triple deck passenger launch Sundarbon-7 plying on Barisal-Dhaka-Barisal route informed that new shoals has formed in the Kirtonkhola river. Hundreds of river vessels have to cross this channel of shoals every day on the way to Dhaka, Khulna, and Chittagong. In the same route shallow water shoals emerged near Ishanbala of Shariatpur and Alubazar of Chandpur. Abdul Barek, Sukani of the BIWTC coastal vessel MV Baro Awlia plying on Barisal-Chittagong route said their journey is almost regularly delayed by 4 to 6 hours due the shoals raised in the routes.

Different passenger launch crews informed that river traffics in Shaheberhat channel connecting rivers Kirtonkhola of Barisal and Megnha and Kalabador of Bhola and eastern parts of the country is also about to be closed due to new formation of shoals.

The water transports plying to Patuakhali, Barguna and other coastal area routes also have encounter countless number of shoals on their ways.

Golam Mawla, leader of local launch owners association expressed their views that, Bangladesh is urgently in need of a long term master plan for its river routes in order to keep its water ways navigable round the year. After spending about twenty crore taka in last 15 years in the names of such kinds of emergency dredging, it failed to give any long term sustainable result, water transport crew and river route pilots and launch operators opined.