How honest are we about saving rivers, really?

When agencies of the government itself are found to be negligent in protecting rivers, we can't help but wonder if the rivers are really dying—as it is often said—or if they're being killed. Reportedly, the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) has been filling up a portion of the Turag River for the last one month, for its Dhaka-Ashulia expressway project. Curiously enough, both the BBA and the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) appeared to plead ignorance. While the project's director claimed that their Chinese contractor "mistakenly" filled up the area, the port and transportation director of the BIWTA vaguely said that the BBA would "probably" apply to them for permission. We wonder if this is the standard procedure for such projects: to first fill up part of a river and then seek permission for it, after the damage has already been done.

Many questions arise from this situation: Why did the government only recently set up demarcation pillars along the four Dhaka rivers, when the High Court had passed an order to do so in 2009? Why were nearly half the pillars set up in the wrong places, making the rivers even narrower, and thus defeating the very purpose of restoring them to their original state? Worst of all, why is there such a disconnect between different government agencies when working in the same area? It is strange that the river area in question has been filled up for over a month, according to locals, but the BBA project director only ordered their contractor to stop work on January 23, 2022. Does this mean that those running this project are so out of touch with its progress that they didn't know about this assault on the Turag River?

We hope that this discovery will be a wake-up call for the government and those in charge of restoring and protecting our rivers—not just around Dhaka, but all over Bangladesh. Dumping waste in rivers and grabbing of river land by influential people are also major threats that need to be dealt with urgently. For many, especially in rural areas, our rivers contribute heavily to their livelihoods, while also sustaining biodiversity in a world steadily succumbing to the impacts of climate change. We must not allow for our water bodies to be suffocated for our own misguided notion of "development."