The curse of 'development'

In fact, the heavy downpour in the third week of September and the first week of the current month caused extensive crop damage at various parts of the country. However, the extent of damage and agony of the cultivators hardly drew the attention of either the media or the policy-makers.

The damage wrought due to water-logging triggered by torrential rains, although many may differ, is not less than the damage inflicted by the deluge in the month of July. In a true sense, in July, there were less standing crops in the field, and those that were lost were recouped through replanting or re-sowing soon after recession of the floodwaters. But the heavy precipitation in September and October damaged standing crops, especially aman paddy, at a stage when it is not possible to repair the damage.

Newspaper reports say some 8 lakh hectares of aman paddy of Meghna-Dhanagoda project in Chandpur went underwater due to water-logging as there is no provision for letting out water from the enclosure of the embankment. Such damage was also wrought in other parts of the country.

A crop is precious to a farmer not only for its economic value. A crop to a farmer is considered beyond economic significance. The price of 50 mounds of paddy might be Tk 15,000, but damage to 50 mounds of paddy to a middle-range farmer is equivalent to the end of the food source for the next 6 months.

There is no way to recover this loss. He would have either to sell his drought cow or mortgage land to a moneylender to maintain his family. He will be caught in the vicious cycle of borrowing. Being caught in the cycle, he will have to finally join the ranks of landless farmers.

The middle class and marginal farmers are the most vulnerable section of our society. They become the first casualties of any disaster. They cannot beg anything from others.

After every disaster, the government and other voluntary organisations come up with helping hands. Such assistance never goes to the middle class or marginal farmers. The assistance provided by the government or other organisations goes to the landless, distressed people. The day-labourers also sometimes get opportunity to earn more through various projects like food for work programmes. But the middle class farmers can neither seek relief nordo work in such programmes so far as they have some land. This is a serious dilemma for the middle class.

Who is responsible for the damage of the paddy that is supposed to fill-up the granary of the farmers within a few days? Rain is a normal phenomenon in this country, but who closed the ways for fast draining out of rainwater?

During my recent visits to some parts of Tangail and northern districts, I noticed that the heavy downpour did not affect areas adjacent to rivers having considerable navigability. On the contrary, areas generally remaining above flood level were badly damaged due to water-logging. The reasons that I found mainly were: (1) rainwater adjacent to the rivers rolled quickly down to the water bodies, keeping the crop field unaffected, (2) rainwater trapped within the unplanned

roads and embankments created water-logging, damaging crops, and (3) the roads constructed have no outlet at all or inadequate outlets for draining out of water.

The affected farmers also blamed unplanned roads and embankments for water-logging. The villagers definitely want roads, but they never want those in lieu of their crops. They do not know the engineering mechanism of water drainage. The people who were behind the planning and construction of the roads are trained and employed with the tax money of the people to protect their interests. Did they discharge their duty properly?

Our politicians, public representatives, bureaucrats, even educated engineers think construction of roads and concrete structures is the sign of development. They are also interested in construction activities for reasons known to everybody. Sometimes, personal interest gets priority over public or national interest. During the last few decades, numerous roads and embankments were constructed connecting villages and upazilas or district towns. According to data from 1997, the total length of road in the country is over 2 lakh kilometres. Of this, 19,112 km is paved and 182,070 km is unpaved. On the other hand, the total length of flood control embankments are around 6,000 kilometres. None of the roads or embankments have adequate water passageway from the enclosures. As a result, heavy rains time and again cause water-logging, damaging standing crops.

It might be thought that these roads and embankments have made rural life easy and prosperous through increasing economic activity. But in reality, such "cosmetic development" has little or no impact on the improvement of the living standard of the common people. Rather, the unplanned and haphazard construction of roads and embankments consumed huge quantity of arable lands, affecting small and marginal farmers.

Roads are necessary for smooth communication and transportation. But we should also look into the fact of whether such construction creates any hindrance to the smooth passage of water. Water bodies like beels, haors, baors, which once acted as water reservoirs have dried up mainly due to the unplanned construction of roads and embankments. Besides, the rivers and canals were also drastically silted up, losing their water discharging capacity. Construction is welcome, but environmental issues should be kept in mind before implementing any project. Mindless construction in the name of development will only cause harm instead of benefit.

The crop loss due to water-logging is not a new problem. It's a recurrent problem. But nothing has been done to redress that. Rather, we are witnessing mindless so-called development programmes, ignoring the environmental impact.

The rivers, beel, haors, and other floodplains in our country have been built over hundreds of years and they have taken almost permanent shape through various changes during this long period. But our development architects want to change these structures overnight through various means, taking them as slaves of human beings. But nature is not a slave. It is our master. If we enrage nature, it will not spare us. Please consider the dynamics of nature while implementing any development project, small or big.

Nazrul Islam is a journalist and environmentalist.