Buriganga Restoration work
TK 116 crore spent on �faulty project
this money has been wasted because the dredged areas have filled up with silt again owing to the absence of
continuous dredging
ANISUR RAHMAN KHAN
After spending TK 116 crore, and 6 years on the much-hyped Buriganga restoration project, the government has recently realised that the project is faulty. Consequently the concerned agency has decided to wrap-up the Tk. 944 crore project, started in April 2010. A summary in this regard has been prepared by the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) for the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), sources said. Sources in the Water Resources Ministry said Tk 116 crore, which has already been spent on the project, has gone to waste. Experts claimed that such projects are taken up without proper study only for misappropriation of public money. Of the 22 bridges of railways, roads and highways constituting the project, three will need reconstruction while foundations of 19 bridges will require re-treatment; said the technical committee report. The project was taken up to clean highly polluted rivers like Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Shitalkhya by injecting fresh water from the Jamuna river via a 162km long lifeline passing through New Dhaleswari, Bangshi and Pungli. However, it was taken up on the basis of poor study by the Institute of Water Modeling (IWM), said sources.
BWDB sources said Tk. 116 crore have been spent on dredging the river. However, this money has been wasted because the dredged areas have filled up with silt again owing to the absence of continuous dredging, they said.
The Buriganga restoration project was scheduled to be completed by December 2013 at a cost of Tk. 944 crore. However, the deadline was extended thrice to December 2015. A government committee helmed by Senior Secretary in the PMO Abdus Sobhan Sikder, on September 2, 2014, decided to treat the bridge foundations.
Chief Engineer (central zone) of BWDB Abul Kalam Azad told The Independent yesterday that the government has now assigned a Chinese company to conduct fresh study on the restoration project and submit their report in three months. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed with the Chinese company on July 2, he said.
Replying to a query, Azad said, We have cut down the project budget from Tk. 944 crore to Tk. 263.89 crore due to morphological changes in river Jamuna. At least 2.25km-long char has developed in the off-take of river New Dhaleswari.
With Tk 116 crore already spent, we will spend an additional Tk. 147 crore to remove char and silt deposited in river Dhaleswari and Pungli, he said. Azad claimed that 56km of the project has already been dredged in (Dhaleswari and Pungli) Tangail and (Turag) Dhaka. He stressed that the project has not failed and will again be implemented after getting fresh study report from the Chinese company. Meanwhile, Chairman of Poribesh Bachao Andolan Abu Naser Khan told this newspaper, Such a mysterious decision to drastically squeeze the project amount after six years will again pose threat of survival for these rivers. Till now, we had pinned our hopes on the project that the rivers guarding the city and its aquatic life would get fresh water! Replying to a question, he said environmental activists should raise their voice against the decision and against misappropriation of public money.
