Some 35 kilograms of fish fry of various species were released into the Rahmatkhali canal at the Madam area of Lakshmipur town on Friday morning, 18 September. Water Resources Minister Shahiduddin Chowdhury Annie released the fry as chief guest. The district fisheries department then distributed fish fry to 33 government and private institutions for stocking in their ponds.

The minister said the programmes launched nationwide by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman since the election include a tree-planting drive with a target of 25 crore trees across the country in five years. Alongside it, he said, the government has taken up the excavation or re-excavation of 20,000 kilometres of canals over the next five years, and fish releases are part of the same programme.

Calling the Rahmatkhali canal 'the lifeline of Lakshmipur', Annie said cleaning work on it was continuing: the canal had been choked with water hyacinth, which has been cleared, and the water now flows adequately. Everything is connected to the environment, he said, and rural infrastructure is a government priority.

Recalling that Bangladesh is a riverine country of 'fish and rice', the minister said the rural economy could be revived through economic transformation if these programmes were given priority across party lines. He presented the canal work as a continuation of the canal-digging programme of the late President Ziaur Rahman.

Special guests included Deputy Commissioner SM Mehedi Hasan, Superintendent of Police Md Abu Tarek, Nahid Uz-Zaman Khan, executive engineer of the district Water Development Board, and district fisheries officer Jasim Uddin, among others.

For fish farmers and rural water management the pledge is a substantial one: re-excavating 20,000 kilometres of canals within five years would bear on irrigation, drainage of waterlogged land and fish breeding in open waters alike. Clearing a hyacinth-choked canal like the Rahmatkhali and stocking it with fry is a small sample of what that would look like; how far the programme reaches the field is the question that follows.

Source: banglanews24