Dhaka: As the red-earth Barind region burns under perennial droughts, residents of Rajshahi district Monday rallied in the capital to demand that the government immediately go for implementing the long-forsaken North Rajshahi Irrigation Project (NRIP) for saving the ecology and crops in what is considered a granary of Bangladesh.

They staged a human-chain demo in front of the National Press Club fronting the banner of Rajshahi Protection Movement Council  (RPMC) in their desperate bid to make their voice heard about the perils.

Speakers at the programme said farmers of Barind region mainly depend on groundwater, as rivers and rivulets in the country’s north and northwest have all dried up.

But, they lamented, the groundwater table is falling down fast due to adverse effects of climate change.

Excessive lifting of water for irrigation and also scanty flow down the Ganges (Padma) are also generally counted as the causes of water crisis in the entire region—where rural people drink from deep-set irrigation pumps in dry season, as normal tube-wells all go dry.

The speakers mentioned that the then government with the help of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) had undertaken the NRIP in the fiscal 1995-1996 with a view to providing irrigation facilities to the farmers.

Lawmaker Fazle Hossain Badsha of the leftwing Workers Party, an ally of the ruling Awami League-led Grand Alliance, who is elected from the main Rajshahi constituency (Rajshahi-2), said the region is turning into a “desert” as the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA), for lack of surface water, is pumping out the underground water through deep tube-wells for irrigation.

“Implementation of NRIP is badly needed to save the region,” the leftist leader told the gathering.

Prof. Mesbah Kamal of History Department at Dhaka University said people should be more conscious about saving the North Bengal region from the adverse impacts of climate change, mainly blamed on global warming for excessive carbon emissions from developed countries.
 
“We have to innovate some methods for preserving rainwater and floodwater for irrigation,” the professor told his audience.

Ziaur Rahman Zia MP, Mahtab Hossain, Abu Bakar Ali, president of Rajshahi Chamber of Commerce and Debashish Pramanik, Executive Member of RPMC also spoke at the programme with Md. Jamat Khan, Conever of RPMC presiding.

BDST: 1330 HRS, May 17, 2010
RT/LY/MUA/