Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Epaper

Eight rivers at Puthia in death throes

Published : Sunday, 11 April, 2021 at 12:00 AM  Count : 533
Rafiqul Hasan Firoz
The photo shows a portion of the Narod River in Puthia Upazila, which has been grabbed. photo: observer

The photo shows a portion of the Narod River in Puthia Upazila, which has been grabbed. photo: observer

RAJSHAHI, Apr 10:  Eight rivers that are Musa Khan, Narod, Raichand, Nishanishi, Aichand, Soka, Hoja, and Sandha rivers in Puthia Upazila of the district have almost disappeared.
Most portions of the banks of these rivers have gone under illegal occupation; local grabbers have turned these banks into croplands or houses; the remaining portions of the rivers have become filled due to suspended navigability.
As a result, according to local farmers, most croplands in the locality face irrigation crisis at drought time.
 A recent visit to the upazila's different areas found these eight rivers almost disappeared; in some points, the rivers bear no existence even.
Two years back, Narod and Hoja rivers were dredged; But these became filled again due to lack of water-flow; even barricades have been raised on different points.
Local old men said, once these rivers would be used by kings or land lords of Puthia, Natore, Rajpargana, Kolkata and Gazipur: their communication and commodity-transporting would be made through these rivers. Then business people (Sawdagar) from different areas of the country would make their merchandising in the waterways.
It was learnt, the merchandising boat of historic Chand Sawdagar, laden with several thousands maunds of goods, got sank in the Musa Khan River at Pananagar point. At present, the point looks no longer a river or contains no water.
With changes of time, the Musa Khan River has been turned croplands, bushes or jungles.
On the other hand, some rivers oncluding Sundar, Pabloi, and Barnoi rivers have lost their existence.
In the '80s, sluice gate was raised at the mouth of the Boral River, a branch river of the Padma. With raising the sluice gate, water-flowing in all rivers and canals in Puthia became suspended.
Some years back, the Musa Khan River was dredged by Barendra Multi-purpose Authority at the cost of lakhs of taka. But local farmers did not get any benefit as navigability of the river did not get activated; rather, in the last few years, the Musa Khan River went back to its old shape.
Old man Asu Chandra Das said, several decades back, the central mortuary of Puthia was along the Narod River of the upazila. But later, it was shifted to Pirgachha area along the Musa Khan River on ground of no-water in the Narod River for almost most of the time of the year.
He further said, local influential have grabbed most of the areas of the rivers by filling illegally; many are bagging in huge amount of money after taking lease of the filled areas; and some have raised living houses and croplands.
Local Shafiqul Islam of Geopara area said, rivers in different areas of the upazila are going to disappear because of negligence and lack of maintenance.
"We are not getting adequate water from these rivers in the dry season for cropland irrigation," he mentioned.
At the same time, these rivers cannot pass excess water due to blockade points, he mentioned again.
It is very urgent to excavate these rivers and evict the illegal grabbers in order to protect environmental balance, he suggested.
Upazila Chairman GM Heera said, at present the government has laid emphasis on river protection through excavation; as part of this, few rivers have been freed from occupation; and excavation is going on in these rivers to get back their flow.




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