The poet Jibanananda Das once decided to return to the banks of the Dhanshiri River in different forms over and over. But the once famous Dhanshiri River has been turned into a dead canal now a day. Crores of Tk are being wasted in the name of dredging this river again and again. Yet the river did not return to the form of her youth. Recently, there have been allegations of irregularities and corruption in the re-excavation of this traditional Dhanshiri River in Jhalakathi district.
According to the CS design of 1910, the width of the estuary of this river in the Baghari part of Rajapur at 360 spots was 56 feet. At that time, big ships were sailing on this river. At the mouth of the river Dhanshiri was then the largest port in South Bengal. Ships used to come there directly from Calcutta. After the partition of the country in 1947, a survey by the government of Pakistan in 1950 found the depth of the mouth of the Dhanshiri River was 200 feet. The design of this survey is still ongoing in 2022. However, it can be said that this 200 feet deep river does not exist at present.
According to the Jhalakathi Water Development Board, according to the Prime Minister's Delta Plan, small rivers within 64 districts, under the canal excavation project, Ruposhi Bangla poet Jibanananda Das's favorite Dhanshiri River in Jhalakathi district will be re-excavated in two installments of 2 km in 2018-19 fiscal year. 4 crore 49 lakh 36 thousand Tk was allocated.
Excluding one and a half kilometers from the mouth of Gabkhan River in Jhalakathi Sadar upazila and digging a length of 10 kilometers, a total of 8 and a half kilometers was started till the mouth of Jangalia River in Baghari Bazar of Rajapur upazila. According to the project order, the width of the river is 60 feet above and 15 feet deep and 20 feet wide at the bottom of the river. The work order further mentions that the soil should be cut from the bottom of the river and removed away from the banks. However, due to lack of proper supervision of the Water Development Board, the locals complained of massive corruption during the excavation work.
Later in the monsoon season, the soil on the banks of the river fell into the Dhanshiri River again and the river bed becomes filled up. This time, Abul Kalam Azad, a contractor from Patuakhali got the job. And he started digging the bottom of Dhanshiri River fifteen days ago.
On Friday, it was seen that due to lack of proper excavation of the River, several thousand hectares of land on both banks are lying uncultivated due to lack of water flow in the river. Due to lack of water, farmers are not able to cultivate the land in the dry season.
The locals complained that the width of the river which was dug at 60 feet two years ago has been kept at 49 to 55 feet. Which is equivalent to a canal. This time the soil at the bottom of the river has been removed and the preparation has been reduced. The locals further complained that they did not want the excavation to be shown to the people. Locals want to dig this river according to SA design.
Rafiq Hawladar, a local, said that although the soil was supposed to be removed by digging the bottom of the river, the contractors did not remove the soil on purpose and kept it on the river bank. In this way, no work is being done in the tender year after year, but a cycle of embezzling crores of government money every year. The Dhanshiri River was also excavated in the 2010-11 financial year at a cost of about Tk 84 lakh. Which did not work later.
Rakib Hasan, an engineer with the Jhalakathi Water Development Board, said four feet of excavation was being done at the bottom of the Dhanshiri River alone. The width above will remain the same as before. The excavation contractor made mistakes in some places and the locals have been asked to fix them on the basis of their complaints.