Every year crop-protection embankments are built in the haors to protect farmers' golden paddy. But because the work is never finished on time, farmers live in fear and anxiety. Over the past five years, breaches in the haor embankments during untimely floods have washed away Tk 600 crore 20 lakh of paddy in Sunamganj, the agriculture department says.

Farmers along the haors want the government to find a permanent solution using modern technology to protect their crops.

Shahab Uddin farms on the edge of Korchar haor in Sunamganj. He borrowed money from a moneylender at high interest to plant boro on 5 acres. But there is fear in his eyes, because if an embankment breaks under the upstream flood and the paddy is washed away, he will be ruined.

Shahab Uddin said work on the haor embankments has not yet started in earnest, raising fears about bringing the paddy home.

It is not only Shahab Uddin. With the same fear, 4 lakh farmers in Sunamganj have grown boro on 223,245 hectares this year, which is expected to produce 1,370,202 tonnes of paddy worth Tk 4,110 crore.

Farmers along the haors say: "We are planting boro with great effort, but if the embankment work is not finished on time our paddy will be ruined by the flood water. Year after year farmers have to live in great fear over these embankments."

The agriculture department says untimely floods breaching the haor embankments have washed away Tk 600 crore 20 lakh of paddy in Sunamganj over the past five years. Of this, paddy worth Tk 446.5 crore was washed away in 2017, Tk 51 lakh in 2018, Tk 71 crore 70 lakh in 2019, Tk 49 crore 38 lakh in 2022 and Tk 1 crore 6 lakh in 2023.

Crop-protection embankments have been built since the sixties to protect haor paddy from early floods. They stop river water entering the haors, saving the boro crop. Every year they are repaired and rebuilt, but in some years untimely floods breach them and farmers' golden crop goes under water.

The question now is how much use these embankments, built at a cost of hundreds of crores of taka of government money, are to farmers, and what farmers think about embankment building in the haors.

This year embankment work has begun on 591 km in 733 sections across Sunamganj's 12 upazilas at a cost of Tk 125 crore. But a month after the work started, there has been little progress. Farmers have also questioned the quality and the rationale of the embankments built every year at a cost of hundreds of crores of taka.

They say the embankments break with a little rain or an upstream flood, and the golden crop goes under. So instead of spending hundreds of crores on embankment work every year, permanent embankments should be built in the haors using modern technology. That would cut the government's annual spending and let haor farmers bring home their paddy without worry.

Farmers also said the important closures in the haors should be built permanently while protecting haor biodiversity, and that dredging the rivers would ease the pressure on the embankments when hill flood water comes down.

Advocate Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of BELA, said there is no denying that embankments are needed. But the embankments being built for thousands of crores of taka in the name of protecting farmers' crops are of no use to farmers. So a permanent solution must be found, with everyone's coordination, that keeps the haors alive.

Mamun Howlader, executive engineer of the Water Development Board, said a Tk 4,500 crore river dredging project has been taken up to keep the embankments safe.

Shamsher Ali, sub-divisional engineer of the Water Development Board, said an initiative has been taken to build permanent embankments along 16 km of the haor. This will save the Tk 25 lakh to Tk 26 lakh that was spent on every kilometre of embankment.

Mohammad Rashed Iqbal, deputy commissioner of Sunamganj, said immediate action will be taken if anyone commits irregularities in the embankment work.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.