By losing all its navigability and being occupied by land grabbers, once a turbulent river Boral has, in fact, turned into a narrow spec of the canal now. Due to illegal occupation and the filling up of the riverbed, the existence of the river is now under threat. Landfilling across the river bed for cultivation and construction purposes, the land level beside the bank of the river has been raised more than normal which is barring the normal flow of water and the river is under existence crisis by losing its navigability.
The Boral river is, in a true sense, an empty, dry canal now. River experts are of opinion that if this river is not properly excavated in a short time, it will get lost from the map of the country forever.
To increase the supply of water in the river, the excavation works of the Intake Channel of the Boral river at Charghat of Rajshahi were completed in 2010. But, the water did not enter the Boral river during the Monsoon even after the excavation. Locals complained, the works of Intake Channel excavation were not properly done and the sand and soil excavated from inside the river were dumped beside the river which again filled the river base. As a result, during the dry season, no running water is found in the river and many places of the river turned bone-dry. The boat can not be run through the river due to lack of water. Nowadays, various types of crops like Maize, Wheat, Mustard, Peanut and Sesame are cultivated on the dried river beds and even in some places in the river bed, Mango orchards have been created.
Member of the Boral Raskha Movement, retired teacher Saiful Islam informed, in 1981-82, Water Development Board constructed a sluice gate at the source of the Boral river at Charghat to make the upazilas adjacent to the river free from flooding. This sluice gate contributed adversely to several million people living beside the river as by blocking the normal flow of water of the river through the sluice gate, the river lost its navigability and surrounding people of the river grabbed the riverside and even dried up river beds turning the Boral to a narrow spec of the canal. Mr Islam called upon the concerned authorities to free the river from the grip of the illegal occupiers and to save the river by demarking its area and excavating it as soon as possible.
Eye witness sources informed an adverse impact is being noticed on the livelihood of the people living beside the river due to its present pitiable condition. There having no water in the connected canals of the river, farmers in the areas are using low-lift pumps and deep tube wells to irrigate their land. As a result, the underground level of water is further depleting and the toxic Arsenic contaminated water is being lifted from the deep underground. Arsenic-contaminated water is spreading disease not only among people but also among plants, crops and fish. The culture of varieties of sweet water fish is not being possible due to scarcity of water and the fishermen who earned their living by fishing on the river are also being engaged in other professions.
Fakhrul Islam, Upazila Chairman of Charghat has blamed the indifference of the authorities of the Water Development Board for such pitiable condition of the river. Moreover, there are anomalies in the overall supervision of the river as the source of the river is at Charghat of Rajshahi but it Water Development Board of Natore district is responsible for overall supervision of it which is creating administrative litigation. He requested the WDB, local public representatives and the local administration to free the river from the clutch of illegal occupiers and to start excavation of the river to resume its life and navigability.
Khalid Bin Walid, Sub-Divisional Engineer of WDB, Natore, informed a project entitled 'Resumption of Water Resources by dredging the basins of Boral river to recover navigability at the source of Padma-Boral' has already been approved and implementation of the project work will start soon.
