Government Plans 13-River Dredging Project to Protect Haor Boro Crop

Every year in the low-lying haor country of north-eastern Bangladesh, early floods and breached embankments send water across hundreds of hectares of half-ripe boro rice before it can be harvested. The loss has become almost a matter of routine for the region's farmers. To guard against it, in May 2026 the government moved to take up a project to dredge 13 rivers of the haor region so that farmers' rice can be protected from early floods. The work will be carried out by the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), and the Planning Commission reviewed the proposal before implementation.

The proposed project is estimated to cost Tk 1,429 crore, with about Tk 193 set aside for each cubic metre of earth removed. Under the project, titled "Early Flood and Integrated Water Resources Management Development in the Haor Region (Phase 1)", 13 rivers will be dredged, canals re-excavated and drainage improved. Through this, it is expected that 165,230 hectares of farmland can be protected from early floods.

Fully funded by the government, the project runs from January 2026 to June 2029 and will work in 16 upazilas of Sunamganj, Kishoreganj and Netrokona districts. According to the Planning Commission, dredging 303.58 km of river is estimated to cost Tk 1,246.70 crore. The project also sets aside Tk 25 crore as compensation for crops on 1,000 hectares of land.

The single aim of the dredging is to restore the drainage capacity of rivers whose beds have filled with silt and sand, so that early floodwater pouring down from the hills can move downstream faster. When the water drains quickly, the embankments that protect the crop have a better chance of holding until the boro rice is harvested.

The project will dredge the Surma, Baulai, Dhanu, Ghorautra, Upper Meghna, Old Surma, Darain, Chamti, Someshwari, Kaunai, Baulai-Patnai, Gang and Abua rivers. Eight of these lie in Sunamganj and five in Kishoreganj.

The BWDB says three river systems will be dredged on a priority basis in the current phase: the Surma-Baulai-Upper Meghna river system, the Old Surma river system and the Abua-Patnai-Kaunai river system. Through them, the target is to protect 165,230 hectares of farmland by dredging 13 rivers, re-excavating canals and improving drainage.

Decisions on the dredging will be taken after visiting the proposed project area, gathering public opinion and with the aim of draining the haor region properly. In other words, where and how much to dredge will be finalised in the light of the local landscape and the pattern of water flow.

A haor is a large, bowl-shaped depression into which the water of rivers and khals collects. In the monsoon it becomes a vast body of water, and in the dry season it mostly dries up. The name comes from the Sanskrit word "sagar" (sea), which local speech changed to "haor". According to Banglapedia, haors are found mainly in greater Sylhet and greater Mymensingh; the basin is bounded by the Meghalaya hills to the north, the Tripura and Mizoram hills to the south, and the Manipur highlands to the east.

The haor country spans the whole of Sunamganj district, most of Habiganj, parts of Sylhet Sadar upazila and Moulvibazar district. Banglapedia counts about 47 major haors and roughly 6,300 beels, of which about 3,500 are permanent and about 2,800 seasonal. In the monsoon, water coming down from the Indian hills floods these areas to a depth of about 6 metres, and the plains stay under water for roughly seven to eight months of the year. The haor acts mainly as a natural reservoir for the Meghna river system.

When the water recedes in the dry season, the exposed alluvial soil is cultivated for rice, which is why the haor is essentially a single-crop boro area. But the risk of early flooding is highest just before that boro crop is harvested, in early summer. Cherrapunji in India's Meghalaya state receives the highest rainfall in the world; the huge volume of rain from those hills rushes very quickly into the haors of Sunamganj, Netrokona and Kishoreganj, so the ripening rice can be flooded before it is cut.

Md Imdadul Haque, executive engineer of the BWDB (Sunamganj O&M Division-2), told Jagonews that dredging the 13 haor rivers will make it possible to save farmers' rice from early floods. Sunamganj district in the north-eastern haor region is called the granary of Bangladesh, he said, and the area's economy depends mainly on rice and fish production.

He explained that the Indian states of Meghalaya and Assam lie to the north of Sunamganj district. Heavy rain falls in the hills of this region, and that water enters Sunamganj through various rivers from India, then flows through the Surma and Kushiyara into the Meghna. Because the beds of the Surma, Kushiyara and other rivers have filled with silt and sand, their drainage capacity has fallen, so flash-flood water takes extra time to drain away.

"Because of the delay in draining flash-flood water, there is a risk that the submersible embankments built by the Bangladesh Water Development Board to protect the boro crop will break and the haor crops will be flooded," Md Imdadul Haque said. "The delay in draining the haor every year also shortens the time for preparing boro seedbeds and transplanting seedlings. In this situation, the rivers in the haor region need dredging to increase drainage capacity, and the intermediate canals need to be dug."

A submersible embankment is a special way of protecting the haor crop. These dykes are built low, so that they go under water in the full monsoon flood; their only job is to hold back early floodwater until the boro rice has been cut. But when a silted river lets the water fall slowly, the pressure on these embankments rises, and a breach can submerge a whole haor's crop in a single night.

The Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) recently met at the Planning Commission to discuss the project. The meeting, chaired by Md Mahmudul Hossain Khan, member (secretary) of the commission's Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural Institutions Division, reviewed the proposal. Several items were questioned at the meeting, and the BWDB explained the reasons for the spending on each.

At the PEC meeting, the rationale for Tk 16.80 lakh set aside for 12 motorcycles was questioned. The BWDB representative said the 12 motorcycles were needed to run the project's work smoothly across three districts, and everyone at the meeting agreed.

The proposed project had included Tk 2 crore for building one non-residential building (an inspection bungalow) and Tk 80 lakh for repairing five non-residential buildings. Asked about the need, the BWDB representative said the provision for repairing the five buildings should be dropped and the provision for building one inspection bungalow kept. Everyone agreed.

A senior Planning Commission official, who asked not to be named, told Jagonews that a committee formed earlier to bring the cost down to a reasonable level had visited the Sunamganj haor area. The chainage and outlet locations needed to relieve waterlogging in the haor, and the canals needed for drainage, were then identified. He said everyone had agreed to include the construction of drainage outlets and the re-excavation of canals in the project's DPP, and that reasonable costs had been set for each item in light of the meeting's decisions.

The project will work in 16 upazilas across three districts. According to Banglapedia, Sunamganj district covers 3,526.12 sq km and had a population of about 2.37 million in the 2011 census. Its main rivers are the Surma, Kushiyara and Jadukata. Agriculture provides about 67 percent of household income here, a figure that reflects an economy built on the haor.

Kishoreganj district covers 2,688.59 sq km and had a population of about 2.9 million in 2011. Its rivers include the Old Brahmaputra, Meghna, Kalni, Ghorautra and Dhanu, and agriculture provides about 60 percent of household income. Its Itna, Mithamain and Austagram upazilas are among the country's largest haor areas.

Netrokona district covers 2,794.28 sq km and had a population of about 2.23 million in 2011. Its rivers include the Dhanu, Dhalai, Ghorautra, Piyain, Gunai and Someshwari, and about 72 percent of household income comes from agriculture. The Someshwari, one of the rivers on the project's list, is an important upstream river of this district.

Why saving one crop matters so much in the haor becomes clear when you look at the region's economy. Tanguar Haor, the best-known haor of Sunamganj, is a good example. According to Banglapedia, it spreads across 10 mauzas of Dharmapasha and Tahirpur upazilas, covers about 100 sq km of which 2,802.36 ha is wetland, and holds 120 beels of various sizes. It supports only a single crop a year, most of its residents are landless or marginal farmers, and seasonal unemployment is severe. Even so, the richness of the soil gives high yields from that single crop.

The haor is a source not only of rice but of fish. Tanguar Haor contains 46 villages and supports more than 140 freshwater fish species, among them air, gang magur, baim, tengra and gulsha. According to Banglapedia, in the 1999-2000 fiscal year the government earned about Tk 70.73 lakh in revenue from the haor's fisheries alone. About 200 species of migratory birds take temporary shelter there each winter. This is why, in the words of the BWDB engineer, the haor economy depends mainly on rice and fish production.

In view of its ecological importance, the government listed Tanguar Haor as a "Ramsar area" under the Ramsar Convention, recognising it as an internationally critical environment. Threatened wetland trees such as hijal, karach and nalkhagra survive there, development or commercial activity that harms the environment is barred, and digging for gas or oil is banned within 10 km of the haor. The haor is at once a store of rice and fish and a place repeatedly exposed to natural hazards such as cyclones, hailstorms and early floods; protecting its single rice crop therefore means securing a whole year's food and income for hundreds of thousands of marginal families.

To understand how the haor's water drains away, one has to look at the Meghna river system. According to Banglapedia, the Barak river, coming down from the hills of Assam in India, splits in two at Amalshid in Zakiganj upazila of Sylhet: the south-western branch is the Kushiyara and the north-western branch is the Surma. Because the Surma's bed has largely silted up at Amalshid, about 85 percent of the Barak's flow now runs through the Kushiyara. The Kushiyara, about 161 km long and averaging 250 m in width, carries large volumes of sediment from the hills of Assam and Tripura, and this silt is one of the main reasons the beds of the haor rivers fill up. In the rainy season its mean depth reaches up to 10 m; the highest discharge recorded at Sherpur was 3,700 cubic metres a second and the lowest 33. That wide gap between the monsoon and dry-season flow shows how quickly an early pre-monsoon surge can build up pressure in the haor.

According to Banglapedia, the Surma is called the Meghna downstream of Ajmiriganj. The Surma runs from Ajmiriganj to its confluence with the Dhanu, about five kilometres east of Kuliarchar; downstream of that junction the river is known as the Meghna.

The stretch from Kuliarchar to Shatnol is the Upper Meghna, which is comparatively small; below Shatnol it widens into a broad estuary. The Surma-Meghna system is about 670 km long in all. In other words, water coming down from the Meghalaya hills must travel a long way through the Surma, the Kushiyara and these rivers to reach the Meghna. When the beds of the rivers along the way are silted up, this drainage slows further, and that is when water builds up in the haor and the danger grows.

The proposed project aims to ensure the normal flow of these rivers. The haor rivers have silted up and lost their drainage capacity, so early floodwater takes a long time to drain downstream from the haor region. The plan is to make this path flow freely again through dredging and the re-excavation of canals.

The haor is essentially a single-crop area, and that one crop is boro rice. When the water recedes in the dry season, farmers plant boro and harvest it in early summer. That is exactly when the risk of early flooding is greatest, so saving a single season's crop means saving a whole year's food and income.

The project document says that if it is implemented, about 15 lakh tonnes of boro rice will be protected from early flood damage, an important contribution to the country's food security. If the haor's water can be drained faster through river dredging, the re-excavation of canals and the building of drainage structures, the pressure on the crop-protecting embankments will ease, farmers will get more time to prepare seedbeds and transplant seedlings, and the region will gain at least some relief from the losses that recur with every early flood.

Photo: P.K.Niyogi / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Sources: Jagonews24; Banglapedia (Haor, Sunamganj District, Kishoreganj District, Netrokona District, Meghna River)