In Bauphal upazila of Patuakhali, excavators are cutting soil from the banks and bed of the Tentulia River, and from the chars themselves, to build embankments that protect watermelon projects, Manab Zamin's Bauphal correspondent reports. Erosion has appeared at several points along the river, and cutting into the chars is shrinking the land that can be farmed. Influential people are said to be doing this openly on about 20 chars with the administration "managed", and no action has been taken so far.
According to the upazila agriculture office, the Kalaiya, Chandradwip, Keshabpur and Dhulia unions have 20 chars, large and small. Watermelon is usually grown on about 4,500 hectares of them, and this year the area is expected to pass 5,000 hectares. Most is grown on the chars of Chandradwip and Kalaiya unions, ringed by the Tentulia, where work for the new season has already begun.
On Char Federation, which rose from the Tentulia, a watermelon project covers about 385 acres, and soil for the embankment around it is being dug day and night from the riverbank and riverbed; in places the char itself is cut to build the dyke. On Char Kalaiya and Char Shaula to the west, about 820 acres are being prepared for watermelon with soil taken from the river and from canals inside the chars. A 104-acre project on neighbouring Char Moazzem shows the same picture.
Chandradwip union has 11 more watermelon chars, among them Char Barrett, Raisaheb, Char Nimdi, Char Kachua, Char Wadel and Char Miajan. The report says embankments there too are being built from the river's banks and bed and from newly risen chars.
Prince, a watermelon grower from Bhola, said he had leased 40 acres through a man named Omar Munshi and was building the embankment to plant watermelon there. He said he did not know that cutting the river or the char was illegal.
Bauphal upazila agriculture officer Md. Milon said unplanned digging of the riverbank was undermining its stability. If it continues, he said, farmland could be swallowed by the river and the livelihoods of people who depend on farming could be at risk; protecting a crop in the short term in this way could harm agriculture in the long term.
Assistant commissioner (land) Saiyed Mahmud Bulbul said there was no scope to cut soil from a riverbank or riverbed and that action would be taken. Watermelon is a profitable crop on the coastal chars, but local people fear that cutting the river and the chars it is grown on will shrink that land within a few years.
Photo: Milli Tami / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
Source: Manab Zamin
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