News paper Article

Save Buriganga River Dhaka is celebrating its 400th anniversary as the capital of Bengal proclaimed by the Mughals in the early 17th century. It is a strategic decision by the Mughals considering the economic, navigation and security potentials of the perennial river Buriganga which surrounded parts of Dhaka. Since then the civilization of Dhaka City has been developed by the bank of the Buriganga River. The history, livelihood, culture and heritage of Dhaka City have been largely shaped by this small but important river. Four hundred years later the river continues to play a very important role, since according to officials an average of 30,000 people use the Sadarghat launch terminal, one of the largest river ports in the world, for departure and arrival every day. But for hundreds of years the Buriganga has been continuously abused by unplanned urbanization and unsupervised industrialization. The onslaught of the resultant pollution has virtually killed the Buriganga. In the present scenario, the river carries only wastewater during the seven months of the dry season (November-May). Even during the wet season no aquatic animal can survive in the dead river water. Throughout the year, inhabitants near the river and thousands of people who travel through Sadarghat suffer a lot because of the foul smelling water of the Buriganga. Ironically the adverse impact of unplanned urbanisation was recognised even during the British rule. Addressing the issue the then British administration made a plan in 1917. For almost a hundred years, successive governments and agencies have also made several plans and the intellectuals and civil society members have been demanding regenerating life into the dead river. Sadly, no plan has been executed properly so far. The ongoing environmental degradation on the Buriganga River has forced the people, who used to live by the river, to change their livelihood. Pollution and loss of navigability in the Buriganga is forcing thousands of people to become street vendors. About two kilometres upstream of Kamrangirchar, at Rayerbazar Sluice gate, through which sewage and effluents from Hagazibagh Tannery are dumped into Buriganga, the scenario is even worse. A survey carried out by Environment and Human Development (SEHD) has identified diseases such as skin diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, dermatological diseases, hypertension and jaundice caused by environmental degradation of Buriganga River. Moreover, the existence of heavy toxic metals such as chromium in the surrounding areas of Buriganga River may cause cancerous diseases. Several studies on the Buriganga River have identified many causes for the river's pollution such as sedimentation at the upstream, encroachment, and disposal of solid wastes, sewage and industrial wastes in the river. Encroachment, of course, has always been a big threat to rivers eating away the banks and narrowing them further and further. Politically backed influential land encroachers have created illegal structures including houses, bazaars, ghats (port), brickfields etc. on the river that has created obstacles on the flow of the river. Meanwhile, the dumping of wastes into the river system has virtually killed it. Dhaka City dwellers have been dumping domestic wastes and solid wastes into the Buriganga since the Mughal period. After hundreds of years, government agencies such as Rajdhani Unnyan Kartripakkha (Rajuk), Dhaka City Corporation, Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa), Department of Environment (DoE) Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) have failed to stop disposal of solid wastes and domestic wastes into the river bodies, state several reports on the Buriganga River pollution. There are many other offenders abusing the river. Innumerable mechanised trawlers and vessels ply in the rivers of Dhaka. Ignorance about the adverse environmental effects of dumping waste materials from the vessels such as solid wastes and burnt oil and BIWTA's lack of stringent laws against such dumping as well as lack enforcement, have led to large scale pollution of the river. Violating the Environment Conservation Rule 1997, more than 7,000 units of industries for textiles, metals, chemicals, rubber, pharmaceuticals, cement, leather, pulp, paperboards, fertilizer, food processing, and petroleum refining in the city area are discharging 1.3 million cubic metres of untreated industrial effluents in the rivers. About 500 tanneries including 200 large units in Hazaribagh are discharging 4.75 million litres of a variety of extremely toxic wastes into the river. On top of this 95 metric tones of solid and hazardous wastes including trimmings of finished leather, shaving dusts, hair, fleshing, trimming of raw hides and skins are also dumped in the area's open drains every year. Can we sensibly believe that Dhaka naturally ends on the bank of Buriganga? When the town grew out of a symbiotic relationship with the river! Or that a city is handicapped to have a river so close to it? Then how the cities of the developed world with rivers have fared over the centuries? London has Thames, Paris has Seine and New York has three rivers, the Hudson, the Harlem and the East river. The growth of these cities has not ended on the banks of these rivers. London has over 8 million people and it has about 106 bridges over the Thames. Paris also has more than 10 million people and there are equally large numbers of bridges over the Seine. And to speak of New York it is a river bound deltaic city with only Bronx as a part of the mainland. Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island are the river bound boroughs of New York. The bridges over the Seine have heightened the elegance of Paris. Almost every notable city of the world has a river by its side. Let us look at our neighbour Kolkata. It has two bridges, one a landmark of the British time and the new one a state of the art bridge. And the waters of Bhagirathi have not suffered the fate of Buriganga. This is all to say how badly we have treated a friend of the city, the Buriganga. Time is not yet over. Say `NO’ to anyone who treats Buriganga like an open drain. Say `NO’ those people who are keeping illegal possession around our river Buriganga. The no has to have a clout. This is something, which the administration has to do firmly and by rising above political or partisan condescension. We have to organize and build awareness to save Buriganga and all of our river our life...