In Naogaon Sadar upazila, a businessman named Belal Hossain has set up a rice mill at Sahapur on the Naogaon-Santahar regional highway, obstructing the mouth of a culvert. Local people say the mill blocks the normal flow of water through the culvert, and that polluted water from the mill runs straight into crop fields, ruining crops. Those affected have called on the higher authorities to look into the matter.

The "Belcon rice mill" was set up at Sahapur, on the north side of the highway, in 1984, but the culvert had been built before that. Because the mill was built right against the culvert's mouth, water from several nearby villages including Dhamkuri, Sahapur and Bashipur cannot pass through it. Local people complain that the culvert is therefore of no use to them.

Polluted black water from the rice mill also flows through the culvert's channel into nearby crop fields. Crops of around a hundred farmers are being damaged: yields are poor and insect attacks appear. Crops on about 200 to 250 bighas on the north and south sides are being harmed by the mill's polluted water. Farmers have been left in despair after facing such losses year after year. They also allege that no steps were taken even after they told the mill's owner.

Hannan of Dogachhi village said the mill's people used to take the polluted water away by vehicle and dump it elsewhere, but for several years they have been releasing it into the culvert's channel. The water goes through the culvert and along the channel straight into the fields, and the crops are attacked by insects and ruined.

Munjur Rahman Babu of Sahapur village said the land now does not produce even half of what it used to.

Belal Hossain, chairman of the Belcon Group, said: "It is not only my rice mill's water that goes into the fields; water from other rice mills goes there too."

Naogaon Sadar upazila agriculture officer AKM Mofidul Islam said: "If polluted water falls on cropland, the crops will be damaged. If polluted water from that rice mill is going into the fields, steps must be taken to protect the crops."

Source: Dhaka Tribune. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.