Special Budget Allocation Demanded for Bagerhat to Protect the Sundarbans and Ensure Safe Water

Civil society representatives have demanded a special allocation for Bagerhat in the national budget to protect the Sundarbans and resolve the district's safe drinking water crisis. They said a special development plan is needed for the district considering salinity, river erosion and the risk of natural disasters.

The demand was raised on Thursday at a roundtable titled 'Including Civil Society Expectations in the National Budget', held at the Dhansiri auditorium in the Dashani area of Bagerhat town. The dialogue was organised by ActionAid's Sushil project and Prothom Alo with support from the European Union (EU). Speakers also called for increased allocations to improve education, healthcare and communications, to modernise the Mongla port, the EPZ and the BSCIC industrial estate, and to tap the district's tourism potential.

Mozaffar Rahman Alam, a freedom fighter and member secretary of the Bagerhat district BNP, stressed supplying water by pipeline from the Madhumati river in Mollahat upazila to resolve the safe water crisis. He said embankments had saved some land but no arrangement had been made for water; safe drinking water is the main crisis here, so allocations must increase. Water is being taken from the Madhumati to Khulna to meet its crisis, he said, but the people of Bagerhat remain deprived, and a similar initiative is needed here.

Noting that salinity affects Bagerhat's four coastal upazilas the most, district Jamaat-e-Islami secretary Sheikh Yunus Ali said embankments here are built of raw earth and do not last; many areas still have no embankment, and tidal water inundates towns and settlements. Several thousand workers, most of them women, work at the Mongla EPZ, he said, but their transport system is extremely poor and risky. Bridges must be built quickly over the rivers in Mongla and Morrelganj; without bridges, a whole region is falling behind.

Highlighting tourism, education, healthcare and the importance of the Sundarbans, Belal Hossain, a member of the Bagerhat district committee of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), said Bagerhat is a unique district with two world heritages in one district — the Sundarbans on one side and historic mosques on the other. Proper investment and an integrated plan are needed to use this centre of natural and archaeological tourism, and the district has great river-centred potential. But with no university or medical college, Bagerhat has fallen far behind, and allocations must be made with these points in mind.

S K A Hasib, secretary of the Bagerhat branch of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik (Shujan), said the Sundari tree — after which the Sundarbans is named — is itself disappearing because of salinity. The 'agamra' disease is wiping out Sundari trees from the forest, he said; salinity has affected agriculture, shrimp farming and everything else, yet no extra attention is ever paid to resolving this region's crises.

Farhana Akter, principal of Bagerhat Bahumukhi Collegiate School, demanded budget priority for improving education in the coastal district, saying the rate of child marriage is high in the district and special initiatives are needed to prevent dropouts.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a former teacher of Bagerhat Government High School, said there was once a movement against the Rampal coal power plant, but it was built ignoring that movement. Now there is talk of a new terminal inside the Sundarbans. In any plan for this region, the Sundarbans must come first, he said, otherwise it will be a terrible decision.

Md Sohel Parvez, Bagerhat upazila social services officer, said safe drinking water is the first need here, and salinity and climate change have a wide impact. Bagerhat has more patients with cancer, kidney disease, liver cirrhosis, paralysis, heart disease, thalassemia and leukemia than many other parts of the country, he said, and the number of people with disabilities is also higher. A special allocation for this region is therefore needed in the research and development budget.

Hawlader Moniruzzaman, a director of the Bagerhat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, raised business and economic problems at the meeting. He said the BSCIC industrial estate is on the path to ruin and many factories are closed. Mongla, the country's second seaport, is not playing an important role in the national economy either. There is scope for more industrialisation and employment in the EPZ, but it is not being used. Steps must be taken through a special budget allocation to modernise the Mongla port, the EPZ and the BSCIC industrial estate in order to attract investment.

Hedayet Hossain, general secretary of the Bagerhat Press Club, said the district has long been neglected. Kazi Javed Khalid, coordinator of the NGO IRB, demanded training centres for young people, saying the crises and needs here are different, so development thinking and allocations need special attention. Cultural worker Jyotsna Debnath urged special care for the mental well-being of people living in a saline, disaster-prone and hostile environment.

Rezaul Haque, research director of the NGO 'Somoshti', presented the concept paper at the roundtable. Inzamamul Haque, Prothom Alo's Bagerhat correspondent, delivered the welcome speech, and Firoz Chowdhury, assistant editor of Prothom Alo, moderated the dialogue. Also speaking were Shubho Hawlader, a sub-assistant engineer of the Water Development Board in Bagerhat, Md Saiful Islam, deputy director of the Department of Women Affairs, journalist Tanzeem Ahmed, Suma Khanam of Jagroto Mahila Sangstha, Naima Selim, secretary of the CSO Hub, and its member Kakli Zaman.