From dawn until late at night, stone is being dug out of the Teesta river in Nilphamari's Dimla and Jaldhaka upazilas. Workers use dredgers mounted on engine boats and iron chisels to break into the riverbed; the stone is piled on the bank and trucked to districts across the country. Barta24's Nilphamari correspondent saw the work upstream of the Teesta Barrage at Telir Bazar, Kisamat Char and Chhotokhata.
Residents say more than 400 boats are involved, working a stretch of about 15 kilometres along the India border in the Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat sections. There is no official count of boats or of how much stone is removed. Local sources say each truck carries 500 to 700 cubic feet of stone, selling for 50,000 to 80,000 taka.
Locals allege an organised ring controls the trade, which goes on despite raids, cases, arrests and seizures of equipment. Lookouts posted on the roads into the river pass word by mobile phone when official or police vehicles approach, so boats, workers and machines are gone before a raid begins.
Unplanned digging has shifted the river's course and cut several narrow channels, and residents say erosion has hit at least 20 villages. Arif Hossain, Anwar Ali and at least eight other residents of Kisamat Char said many homesteads in their village have been swallowed by the river over the past two years, and several thousand people who lost their homes now shelter beside the road on the flood embankment. Farmers are losing cropland to the river as well.
The report says the indiscriminate digging also threatens the Teesta Barrage, the largest in the country, and the flood-control embankment, whose road the stone trucks use. Residents ask who will take responsibility for compensating and resettling the people made homeless while others profit from the stone.
Local journalist Rezwan Islam told Barta24 that stone is lifted from more than 400 boats a day even though there is a Border Guard Bangladesh camp and river police in the area, and that word of raids leaks in advance. He also alleged collusion by some river police members; their response could not be obtained.
Photo: Salim_Khandoker / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Barta24
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