United they stand

There is an old saying: “It takes a village to raise a child”. Now another saying could be introduced, “It takes an upazila to save a levee”.

Residents of near about 40 villages in Tahirpur upazila deserves the credit for this “new proverb” as they, without any government support, have almost completed a mammoth task of repairing a three-km-long portion of an embankment that was damaged in 11 spots.

The villagers -- yet to harvest the boro rice they cultivated on about 22 thousand acres of land inside the levee built to protect lowlands alongside the Shonir Haor -- have helplessly witnessed paddy fields getting inundated in low lying areas surrounding 21 other haors (type of a wetland). The Water Development Board (WDB) authorities did not do anything to save the flooding.

The WDB officials had visited the Shonir Haor embankment a few months ago and they assured the locals that the necessary steps would be taken to start repair work once they get adequate funds from the government.     

Tahirpur residents could not just wait and watch the same devastation that occurred in the neighbouring areas. They decided to take charge and do something about it.

Nearly five thousand residents of the 40 villages joined hands in the daunting task of repairing the levee on Monday. So far they have managed to patch up almost 75 percent of the most damaged portions of the embankment.

Ahmed Ali, a farmer and a volunteer from Bagiani village was seen eating only flattened rice with molasses for lunch when this correspondent met him on Thursday on the embankment near the village.

Ahmed could have had a better meal at home, but he decided not to waste any time. He said if they waited any longer for government funds, his crops on five acres of land would go under water by now. 

Harinakandi's Abdul Mannan Khan and Milon Talukder from Jalkhali also said they started the work on their own as their appeal to WDB for fixing the damaged levee went in vain. 

“The WDB officials gave us hope, but they did not keep their promise,” said Burhan Uddin, general secretary of Shonir Haor Unnayan Committee and chairman of Tahirpur Sadar union.

“We have been pursuing the matter with the WDB officials and contractors, but they did not follow through their commitment,” said Kamruzzaman, upazila chairman of Tahirpur upazila.

Under the circumstances, five thousand people from 40 villages took up the repair work on their own, he added. 

Contacted, Afsor Uddin, executive engineer of WDB in Sunamganj, claimed that even though contractors had already been assigned for the repair work, they failed to execute the work in time.