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Treadle pump : A beacon of hope

By Masud Hasan Khan
Dr K A Mansur never dreamt that his 6.6 acres of highland in Savar could ever be manually irrigated
The arid land, locally known as "tangor". is 40 feet above the ground water table and Is seasonally washed by monsoon rains. But after the rainy days it Is Eliot's "waste land " come-true.
On Thursday the bone-dry plot of land of Dr Karim soaked water from a deep set treadle pump, a locally Invented and developed pump considered to be a major breakthrough in the country's agriculture irrigation.
Now. with the water gush Ing out of the deep-dug pump. Dr Manzur is ready to start farming hls once-dry-ln-wlnter land..
The treadle pump Is a foot-operated Irrigation pump which works on the suction mode. It has a double-piston cylinder with foot valve, two bamboo treadles, a bamboo frame and a PVC pipe to lift ground water
International Development Enterprise (IDE), a Swiss funded non government organisation. Is the developer of the treadle pump which earlier could only lift from shallow ground water table.
Treadle pump is the brain child of a Bangladeshi in response to hls country's recurrent pangs— drought and famine. Narendra Nath Dev., a farmer of Ulipur Upazila in Kurlgram district first conceived the pump which was further developed by Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Services (RDRS). a leading NGO in Bangladesh. Later, the IDE developed another version of the pump with deep water lifting
With addition of the new model, the country's fragmented agricultural land, the unproductive rural work force and the water resource could be optimally utilised, promot ers of the deep-set pumps hope.
Besides, the new innovation would bring the vast unproductive high lands of the country under irrigation facilities.
IDE, based In Denver. USA Is working In Bangladesh since 1984 for establishing vital private sector commercial organisations to serve the needs of the small, marginal and the landless farmers of the country.
“It is a franchise . . . it s like Honda. Toyota cars for the poor people." says IDE's country director William H Derrenger explaining the use of the new version of the pump to a group of newsmen who visited a demonstration site at Savar. The cost of a deep set treadle pump would not go above Taka 3000. he says
The IDE director says that the pump would help form a productive partnership between the wealthy farmer with unproductive land and the eager sharecroppers creating employment opportunities to thousands^ rural families
According to Derrenger. there are some 6.5 million families in the country with plots of land too small to provide anything other than bare subsistence — the people whose Ilves precariously de pend on rains or functions of the tubewell.
The deep set model of the treadle pump, which lift up to 20 gallons of watqr per minute . would also help the sharecroppers to orchestrate their
own agenda of farming — producing diversified crops
According to the IDE director. there are some 700.000 traditional model of the trea die pumps in the country
An IDE study on the utility of the new model, shows that a tenant farm (amity can earn more than 36 thousand Taka a year on one third of an care of land, after all expenses are paid
At present, the IDE Is doing a bit of hand-shake Job. under the brand name "Krlshak Bandhu"(farmer's friend), with some 75 manufacturers. 6000 dealers and 10.000 fitters, or "misiris".
Since 1984. the organlsa tlon has Invested on behalf of Canadian C1DA and the Swiss Development Cooperation about 1.500.000 dollar for de velopment and dissemination of the technology.
A BIDS report on the productive value of the treadle pump says that the country's landless people alone, equipped with the treadle pump, can produce 50 per cent of Bangladesh s food grain requirements
IDE has also sent this Bangladesh innovation across the border. The organisation operates similar programmes in India. Nepal. Vietnam and Brazil where initial response to Introduction of the pump was "very exciting" according to Derrenger.
As the curious rural people of the nearby Savar villages close In to watbh in awe. four kids begin streadllng the deep sei pump. Derrenger says. "It's the world s only baby pump run by the babies" — a spark to re-ignite a roaring flame..