The farmers of Sunamganj and Kishoreganj, two low-lying districts that remain under water for about eight months a year, turned to the local MPs in 2009 to manage the swelling Kalni and Kushiyara rivers that very often inundate their lone Boro crops.
They believe that senior MPs Abdul Hamid, now president, and former railway minister Suranjit Sengupta, can force the government to implement a project to tame the two rivers – the main water supply for the vast haors stretching through 18 upazilas of the districts.
“For years, flash floods have often inundated our paddy fields. The government should do something for us so that our crops are not washed away due to an overflow of the two rivers,” Zillur Rahman, a small farmer in Itna of Kishoreganj, told the Dhaka Tribune.
He said Abdul Hamid and Suranjit Sengupta had raised the issue in parliament and the then water resources minister promised to assist in this regard. “But nothing has happened,” he said.
Zillur was right as the parliamentary committee on Government Assurance reviewed the status of implementation of the water resources minister’s promises yesterday on the Parliament floor.
The working paper presented at the meeting shows that Ramesh Chandra Sen and his deputy Mahbubur Rahman made 33 commitments in parliament during 2009-2013.
Of them, only 10 assurances have been implemented while two commitments were suspended by the authorities. The rest are in progress.
On February 11, 2009 Suranjit drew the attention of Ramesh Chandra, according to whose assurance the Water Development Board adopted the Kalni-Kushiyara Management Project costing around Tk610 crore.
Until April this year, only 4.65% of the work has been completed, says the paper, a copy of which was obtained by the Dhaka Tribune. A paltry Tk25 crore has been allocated for the project.
In parliamentary practices, a minister’s commitment in legislature is rated as obligatory for the executive.
“What else can we do if a minister’s assurance in parliament remains unfulfilled for so many years?” Suranjit Sengupta told the Dhaka Tribune.
The senior Awami League leader said he had raised the issue as the depth of the Kalni and the Kushiyara had reduced due to the deposit of sediments from upstream. “If implemented, thousands of poor farmers will be benefit as food production in the region will rise.”
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics says over 6.7 lakh tonnes of Boro rice grow in the Kishoreganj and Sunamganj districts every year.
“If the project is not implemented, the haor people will face disaster in the future,” Rejwan Ahammad Taufiq, Abdul Hamid’s son and Kishoreganj 4 MP, said.
In response to a notice of public-importance raised by the AL MP Abdus Sattar on October 7, 2009, Ramesh Chandra assured the implementation of a project to stop erosion of the Brahmaputra river from the Shambhuganj bridge to the Latiamari Bazar in Mymensingh.
On July 24, 2011, the Water Resources Ministry suspended a project previously designed according to the assurance of the minister, as the local people told the WDB officials that the project was “not essential.”
On September 7, 2009, Ramesh Chandra promised the Awami League MP Kamal Ahmed Majumder that he would link Dhaka’s Kalyanpur-Ibrahimpur canal with the Turag River. The water resources minister later suspended the project saying the drainage of the canals lay with the Local Government Ministry.
Shahiduzzaman Sarker, a member of the Government Assurance Committee, told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have asked the ministry to accelerate the implementation of the promised projects as soon as possible.”
The ministry officials attending yesterday’s meeting claimed the shortage of funds to be one of the major reasons for the delays. Committee members Rahmat Ali, Abdul Quddus, AKM Shahjahan Kamal, Abdul Majid Khan and Mir Mostaque Ahmed Robi attended the meeting with Kazi Keramat Ali in the chair.
Source: UNBConnect
