Must Buriganga die?

The days are not far off when people will talk about Buriganga river in the past tense. There is still a stretch of narrow water body called Buriganga which was 45 kilometres long when the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) measured it in 2005. But it became shorter by 26 km when BWDB again measured its length in 2011. And this river, now a shadow of its glorious past, is diminishing in length, width and depth every day, thanks to the endless encroachment of its banks by land-grabbers   as well as its being the favourite dumping site for Dhaka's industries and sewer system.

But whatever is still left of the river is a dark mass of foul-smelling water where no aquatic life, except perhaps sucker fish, can survive. For the amount of dissolved oxygen in its water goes down to 2 milligrams per litre (mg/L), even 1 mg /L, during lean seasons. But for aquatic life to survive and grow, the concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) in water should be more than 6.5 to 8 mg/L.

The governments in the past undertook numerous projects to free Buriganga from pollution and encroachers. Five rivers including the Buringanga, namely Turag, Sitalakhya, Balu and Dhaleswari that surround the Dhaka city are equally polluted by wastes from industries and Dhaka's sewerage system. To revitalise these rivers, the previous regime undertook a seven-year programme. To implement the programme through some 29 projects, the government of the time planned to spend USD20 billion. It was estimated at that time that unless urgent action was taken to free those rivers from pollution, the loss to the nation would be as high as USD51 billion in the next 20 years. So, another megaproject styled 'Umbrella Investment Plan-Dhaka Rivers' was in the pipeline. But ultimately it could not see the light of day as the government that conceived it was dislodged from power during August 5's student-mass upheaval. However, there was nothing wrong with the idea of salvaging Buriganga and four other interconnected rivers, which basically constitute Dhaka's lifeline. But given the history of massive corruption involving every megaproject undertaken during the previous regime, one wonders what the cost overruns against those  29 projects under the so-called 'Umbrella Investment Plan-Dhaka Rivers', in short Dhaka Rivers, would finally come to. As experience goes, such big projects created the opportunity for the ruling apparatchiks and their cohorts to loot the state exchequer.

However, the interim government, whose environment, forest and water resources adviser herself is an environment crusader can consider the positive aspects, if any, of the Dhaka Rivers project and see if it could be implemented in a modified form to save Buriganga and its other interlinked rivers.

True, the interim government with its limited mandate may not undertake ambitious projects. In this connection, the environment adviser in one of her interviews with the media said that due to time constraint, her government would rather select a small number of rivers from eight divisions and try to free them, particularly from industrial wastes and encroachers.  And those would serve as models for future governments to emulate, she viewed. Cleaning other rivers such as the heavily polluted Buriganga, in her view, is a hugely challenging task as the chromium in the Buringanga water will take a long time to remove.

But will the elected governments of the future take the risk of freeing Buriganga, in particular from pollution and encroachment? For none of the governments in the past could even start the work of saving Buriganga despite no end of promises they made. Why? Because, it is the vested interests who grab the river's banks, set up polluting factories, dockyards, you name it, and the governments are always helpless before their power! Or are they?

So, Buriganga must die.

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