Haor areas unprotected

This year so far has been a particularly good one for farmers in the haor region of Sylhet as there have been no flash floods this season. As we already know, flash floods in the past two years had devastating consequences for people living in haor areas. But a year later, one thing still stands out. Construction of embankments, it seems, is far from being completed and anomalies are apparently rife, as per a report published in this paper on Tuesday.

This sounds awfully familiar. Similar allegations had plagued the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) last year. Had it not been for the failure of the BWDB to construct and repair embankments, the scale of destruction last year could have been drastically reduced and thousands of livelihoods protected. The calamity was largely manmade.

Why then has the construction work of embankments not yet been completed? The schedule for completion was February 28 which was then extended to March 15; two deadlines have already passed by. According to a community spokesperson, more than 90 percent of the scheduled work remains incomplete. Furthermore, government rules are being violated in constructing the embankments, resulting in their low quality.

There is no doubt that this time too, farmers would have had very little protection had there been flash floods but perhaps it was a stroke of luck that saved them this time around. It is incomprehensible as to why construction work is moving at a snail's pace when precisely such negligence was largely to blame for thousands of hectares of farmland being wiped out in the past years. Not only is it a waste of public money but also goes to show the BWDB's disregard for protecting the haor areas. There is clearly a need for oversight and monitoring in the construction of embankments, especially in light of past allegations of corruption against the BWDB, because haor people's fate simply cannot be left to chance.