By Dr Aynal Haque
RAJSHAHI, Sept 24, 2020 (BSS) – Around 3,000 households in Char Mazar Diar village under Paba Upazila in the district have got a great chance of minimizing their problems relating to shortage of both irrigation and drinking water.
The villagers are using the water for drinking and other household purposes and also cultivating various less-irrigation consuming cereal crops and vegetables after the best uses of the surface water.
“We have installed one Low Lift Pump (LLP) and four dug-wells at a cost of around Taka 82 lakh to provide the families with drinking and irrigation water in the village recently,” said Engineer Nazirul Islam, project director of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA).
After lifting water from the river through the LLP the villagers can irrigate around 350 to 500 bighas of croplands. Besides, around 35 to 40 bigha of farming fields can be irrigated by each of the dug-wells.
He said both the LLP and dug-wells are being driven by solar power as the area is separated by the Padma River from the mainland.
The hard-to-reach villagers have already started availing the scopes of changing their fate after best uses of the infrastructures which are being adjudged as the effective means of lessening their long-standing pain.
Shah Alam, 30, one of the beneficiary villagers, said an acute water crisis exists in the area resulting in the untold sufferings of the poor and other marginalised people.
They were facing severe water crisis for decades but by dint of sinking a dug-well in the area, 100 to 150 families are getting their daily drinking water and also cultivating crops and vegetables with the same water.
Monwara Begum, 53, another resident, said they had been suffering from water crisis for decades but now they’re having a dug-well and their suffering has abated to some extent.
She mentioned that the dug-well has become blessings for them. Before installation of the well, they had to fetch water from far away. She demanded commissioning of more dug-wells in the area.
Engineer Nazirul Islam said the infrastructures were set up in the village as part of one of the components of a project titled “Extension of Irrigation Facilities by Augmentations of Surface Water and Mitigation of Water Logging in Bagha, Charghat and Paba Upazilas of Rajshahi District”.
Under the Taka 25.61-crore project, 24-kilometer canals are being re-excavated besides construction of four foot over bridges and two culverts. The scheme has also provision of constructing 20 dug-wells along with water distribution system and solar power-driven pumps.
Main thrust of the project is to increase cultivable land by 1,250 hectares through removing water logged problems and providing irrigation to 1,950 hectares of land directly which will generate scopes of yielding around 8,800 tonnes of additional crops.
A total of 10 low lift pumps run by two cusec solar panels each will be installed for lifting water from the canal for irrigation in farming lands, he also said.
“We have a plan of transplanting around 8,000 saplings of fruit, wood and medicinal plants on embankment of the re-excavated canals,” Nazirul said, adding that the transplanted trees will contribute a lot to creating additional forest resources along with improving the environment.
Ultimate goal of the scheme is to reduce excessive use of groundwater and develop an agro-ecological balance for addressing the adverse impact of climate change in the project area.