The Bangladesh Water Development Board (WDB) has failed to acquire land for a sediment basin to deposit silt from the River Jamuna at the mouth of the New Dhaleswari River in Tangail. A total of 68 hectares of land will be needed to construct the sediment basin, sources said. WDB had taken up the 162-km-long New Dhaleswari-Pungli-Bangshi-Turag-Buriganga River System Project in April 2010 to clean up the rivers girdling the city and restore navigation by bringing fresh water from the Jamuna.

A total of 68 hectares of land will be needed to construct the sediment basin at the mouth of New Dhaleswari, sources said.

The project, which was scheduled to be completed by December 2013, has been extended thrice, pushing up the total project cost to Tk 1,125 crore from Tk 944 crore.

“A total of Tk 298 crore has been spent since 2010 for dredging the river. About 55.91 km of the River Pungli in Tangail was manually dredged through an excavator, while 10.8 km of the River Turag was dredged as well. Besides, 40 km of maintenance dredging was also carried out on the River Pungli,” Saidul Islam Khan, executive engineer (central zone) of WDB, told The Independent yesterday.

The WDB official informed that there was still a need to dredge the Turag for 3 km more. At the same time, tenders have been invited for 20-km dredging work on the River Bangshi, he added.

“We are now operating dredgers to clean 1,100 metres at the mouth of the New Dhaleswari in Tangail district. Besides, all preparations have been taken up to construct a 1.53-km-long sediment basin. It would take over two months to begin the work as the local administration is yet to complete the land acquisition process,” Khan said.

He expressed hope that the project to inject freshwater flows into the Buriganga from the Jamuna to clean up the moribund river would be completed by June 2020.

In a related development, the Tangail district administration has almost completed the land acquisition process for the sediment basin.

“We have received a proposal from WDB. We have completed the process to acquire the necessary land and are now examining the documents to pay compensation to the actual land owners,” Nurul Amin, Tangail deputy commissioner, said.

The government had taken up the project to clean up highly polluted rivers such as the Buriganga,

Turag, Balu and Shitalkhya by injecting fresh water from the Jamuna via the New Dhaleswari, Bangshi and Pungli through a 162-km-long lifeline.

The project was meant to revive the almost extinct aquatic life of Buriganga as well as restore the livelihood of local fishermen.

However, the WDB began the project in 2010 on the basis of a poor feasibility study by the Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), said sources.