By Syed Mazarul Islam Rubel

The Torki-Basail canal, once a fast-flowing and historic waterway through Gournadi and Agailjhara upazilas of Barishal district, is now nearly dead from loss of navigability, encroachment and pollution. The farming, life and nature of the area are under threat. Because the canal has not been dredged for a long time, silting in both the canal and the river means river water no longer enters it. In places, dams, poorly planned bridges, temporary and permanent structures built on the canal's land and indiscriminate dumping of rubbish have left it in a sorry state.

The canal was once the main waterway of the area. As roads were paved, travel by road became more popular, and without maintenance the canal gradually lost its navigability. The effect is felt in the boro season: in winter in particular there is no water in the canal at all. Boro rice on about 14,000 hectares of land in the area depends on irrigation from this canal.

The canal is fed mainly by the Palardi river, a branch of the Arial Khan. But in the dry season, when the river level falls, no water enters the canal. The lasting solution is to dredge the canal and match the levels of river and canal. Instead, the mouths where river water enters the canal are dammed and water is lifted from the river through an artificial irrigation scheme, which is run by a local contractor under a lease.

This water passes through several hands before farmers must buy it at a high price. As a result, farmers are turning from rice to betel leaf and fish enclosures, and the area under rice is shrinking day by day. At the same time, because the canals have silted up, a few days of continuous rain in the monsoon fill them to the brim and the betel leaf gardens and fish enclosures go under water.

On the one hand farmers cannot cultivate their land for lack of water. On the other, for every 20 decimals of land they must hand over the paddy from 3 decimals as the irrigation charge. With low paddy prices and high costs, sharecroppers are reluctant to farm. Landowners, farmers and sharecroppers alike are suffering.

A large number of fishing families once made their living from this canal, which held around a hundred species of native fish. With the canal dying, local people are losing those native fish. The flow has stopped, and the stagnant water breeds malaria, dengue and other waterborne diseases, a threat to public health in the area.

No effective initiative on the canal has been seen from local representatives or upazila agriculture officials. Thousands of reports have been published in the media, but the authorities concerned have not stirred. In the last boro season the affected farmers applied to the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) for the canal to be dredged, but received no response.

The marginal people of this farming region are demanding that the canal be freed from encroachment and pollution and dredged so that its flow is restored.

The writer is an environmental activist with Climate Network Bangladesh.

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