Despite having spent over Tk. 16 crore, the authorities are yet to clean up the capital’s lifeline, the Buriganga, which lies by the western edge of the 400-year-old city. The river water remains highly polluted on a 23km stretch, where no aquatic life can survive. In spite of their failure, the authorities are planning another such project to “clean” up not only the Buriganga, but also the Turag and Shitalakhya rivers at a cost of Tk. 2.38 crore. The plan is awaiting the ECNEC’s approval.
Water samples were collected by green activists during the height of the monsoon. Laboratory tests showed that the dissolved oxygen level in the river water at the Sadarghat point was 0.24 microgram per litre (mg/l). This was followed by 0.79 mg/l at Dholaikhal, 0.98 mg/l at Shyampur, 0.56 mg/l at the down stream of the Pagla water treatment plant, 0.29 mg/l near Mitford Hospital, 0.51 mg/l at the Chandni ghat water works point. The BOD was 2,096 mg/l, NH4 105 mg/l and EC 1,229 micro semence per centimetre elsewhere in the Buriganga.
To survive in the water, any aquatic life needs DO 6mg/l, BOD 0.2mg/l, NH4 0.5mg/l and EC 500 us/cm, said an officer of the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR).
The chairman of POBA, Abu Naser Khan, said tanneries, Dhaka City Corporations, WASA, hospitals, clinics and different industrial units are dumping untreated waste and garbage into the water, putting the survival of the river at stake.
The authorities have virtually failed to improve the water quality of the Buriganga even in the full rainy season, even after spending crores of taka under the Buriganga Restoration Project, said Abu Naser Khan, a green activist whose organisation has been campaigning to save the river.
On June 20, an experts team of the Paribesh Bachao Andolan (POBA) conducted a survey on the Buriganga from Fatulla to Gabtoli and tested the quality of the water by electric conductivity at different points.
He further said that it is a matter of grave concern that raw waste, including sewage, is being dumped into a river. This indicates how other rivers are coping with the situation and it not only poses a serious threat to the country’s fragile ecology but also to its economy.
In such a polluted condition, there is no scope for survival of any aquatic life in the Buriganga, Abu Naser Khan observed. Terming the Buriganga as a dead river, the green activist said: “WASA is dumping at least 12.50 lakh cubic metres of garbage, the tanneries of Hazaribagh are dumping 21,000 cubic metres of untreated waste into the river daily.”
The tanneries are dumping the most lethal waste, laced with chromium and other heavy metals used in tanning of hides and skin. Then come boat yards. Hundreds of engine boats, including motor vessels, are dumping their bilge water, mixed with engine oil and burnt engine oil directly into the river. Besides, hundreds of dyeing and garments factories along the two shores of the Buriganga are responsible for polluting the river, as well as its tributary, the Turag in the north. The Turag links up with the Buriganga at Mirpur carrying black water, dirty and stinky with all the industrial effluents dumped into it. No wonder its called “kahar daria”, or river of poison.
To the east, the Balu, an offshoot of the Shitalakhya that joins the Turag at Tongi, is equally dirty with all the industrial waste and household garbage.
Crores of taka have gone down the river in the name of the Buriganaga cleaning project, a pilot scheme taken up by the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA). It was the Prime Minister’s priority project.
Stacks of garbage, polythene bags, household rubbish, coconut shells and plastic materials float in the river’s black and stinky waters.
Although the government has already spent about Tk. 16.53 crore to clean the Buriganga and extracted over 8.5 lakh cubic metres of sludge from the river bed, people living on its shores are still dumping their garbage into the water, never bothering about the survival of the river and its aquatic life.
Rakibul Islam Talukder, superintendent engineer of the BIWTA, said they have submitted another project of Tk. 238 crore to clean the 17 km stretch of the Turag, Buriganga and the Shitalakhya. The project is awaiting the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council’s approval, he added.
-With The Independent input
