A boon now a bane

About 150 feet of the Dinajpur irrigation canal embankment at Horish Chandra Pat village in Jaldhaka upazila is vulnerable and may collapse any time. PHOTO: STAR

The WDB (Water Development Board) sluice gate will also the affected if the embankment breaches.

This correspondent during a visit to the area on Thursday saw that a major portion of the embankment at that point has eroded into the canal water. If the flowing water devours a few feet, the embankment and the 'observation road' built to supervise the canal will collapse. About 150 feet of the embankment is now threatened.

Repeated breaches in the embankment in different areas has become a menace to the farmers, which inundate crop lands and affect irrigation, many of them told this correspondent. The erosion is going on for the last few days but the WDB did not take any measure, they alleged. More areas are eroding into the canal every day.

When contacted, WDB Executive Engineer in Nilphamari Yasin Ali said officials visited the spot and repair will be started soon despite fund shortage.

The Dinajpur Canal breached at three other points in the last one month, inundating about three thousand acres of IRRI-Boro lands and disrupting irrigation in more several thousand acres.

Mentionably, at least 15 major breaches took place in different canal embankments of Teesta Irrigation Project since it was commissioned on June 30, 1998.

The farmers alleged each the breaches took place as the embankments were not built properly.

Sand was used instead of earth in building the embankments, they alleged.

But WDB officials blamed local people for "sabotage". The breaches took place due to small outlets created by farmers to steal water, they claimed.