Bangladesh riverbed cleaning drive goes futile

Hundreds of tonnes of rubbish is being dumped into the Buriganga every day, making futile the Tk 6 crore project of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) to clean the riverbed.

The rubbish is dumped into the river on both banks of the river stretching from Mohammadpur to Postogola and Kholamora to Zinzira.

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC)-sponsored door-to-door rubbish collectors collect the household rubbish generated in densely populated areas like Kamrangir Char, where around a million people live, Shahidnagar, Sowarighat, Waizghat, Babubazar, Shyambazar, Mitford Nolgolla and beyond, and invariably unload their rickshaw-bins into the river.

Solid waste management is nonexistent along the river which raises questions about the utility of the cleanup drive that continues in full swing nearby.

Locals in Kamrangir Char gathered on the embankment Saturday morning and termed the drive "ridiculous and futile", pointing their fingers at the huge piles of freshly dumped rubbish in the river.

Just yards away from the embankment, a grab excavator mounted on a barge was busy scooping up sludge and rubbish from the riverbed.

Babul Sheikh, a businessman in Kamrangir Char's Umbrella Masjid area, said the money should have been spent first to prevent dumping of rubbish into the river.

"This cleaning drive is a total waste because every day we are dumping similar amount of rubbish into the river. We have no other alternatives," he said.

On the other side near Balurghat and Talakpara, Jharna and her husband Sohrab manage 15 rickshaw-bins in Shahidnagar, earning a meagre living with 13 other collectors.

At exactly 9:00am on Sunday the couple defied the chill and pulled two of the vans towards the river. As they unloaded their half-rotten polythene-clad cargo into the slope of the embankment they said they are authorised by DCC to collect rubbish from Shahidnagar charging each household Tk 20.

"We feel very bad to dump the rubbish here every day. But we do not have an alternative. The city corporation bin men never come here," said Jharna as they kept unloading half a dozen rickshaw-bins arrived at the site for dumping.

Every day dumping of rubbish in the river is so rampant that at places small islands have been created. Mountains of household rubbish have been piled up every 100 metres mile after mile along the banks.

At Sadarghat Launch Terminal, at around 10:00am scores of large passenger vessels kept arriving from different southern regions. Once the passengers got off the vessels, workers swept the dirty floors of the huge vessels preparing for their return journeys. Soon layers of rubbish including polythene bags were strewn in the river water.

DCC Chief Waste Management Officer Capt (BN) Bipan Kumar Saha expressed dismay at the matter and blamed unscrupulous drivers for the crime.

"Nothing can justify such acts of dumping rubbish in an undesignated spot. I promise you we will hand out exemplary punishment for the offenders," he said.

Successive chiefs of waste management said the same on record to this correspondent but so far these perpetrators and their assistants could not be deterred.

Since the BIWTA launched the drive on January 6, onslaught on all the rivers around Dhaka has nonetheless continued with thousands of tonnes of liquid and solid waste pouring into the waters.

The Buriganga is now a lifeless pit with no water flow from upstream. Ever since the lean period sets in, the river's flow from the Jamuna in Manikganj and Tangail has been cut off due to heavy siltation at the sources.

The water in the Buriganga is now so toxic and foul that it cannot be touched. The only movement in its water is observed when the high tide from the Meghna pushes the water upward and the low tide downward.

At the Shouarighat fish market traders said every day the market and adjacent trading centres generate nearly a tonne of rubbish, all of which is dumped into the Buriganga.

When this correspondent informed the traders about the government's imminent move to clean the riverbed, they unanimously said unless the authorities seriously look into the waste management along the embankments, thousands of tonnes of solid waste will flow into the river.

"Waste management in this part of the city is virtually non-existent. All markets, traders, shops, households and river vessels find the river the nearest and the easiest place to dispose their rubbish off," said Abdur Rashid, a leader of the fish traders in Waizghat.

BIWTA Chairman Md Abdul Maleque Mia said the whole cleanup drive would be futile unless mass awareness is created.

"We have written to all launch owners operating from Sadarghat to install bins within their vessels and dispose off the rubbish inside a container placed at the terminal," said Maleque.

Urgent measures are required to stop dumping rubbish into the river and find a place for proper disposal. For Abdul Maleque Mia of BIWTA and Bipan Kumar Saha of DCC the challenge to clean the river is far greater than it appears.