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DAM REPAIR WORK

Poor coordination sparks tree felling, material theft
OUR CORRESPONDENT, Patuakhali
Bangladesh Water Development Board on October 2 initiated repair works for a one-kilometre stretch of damaged dyke on the bank of Payra river in Dhankhali village under Patuakhali Sadar upazila.
As part of the work, soil has been kept on a damaged portion of the road on the dyke for excavators to dump it for repairing the dyke.
However, in a surprising turn of event, some locals have been digging up this damaged portion of the road to extract bricks, sand and gravel from underneath.
BWDB officials and workers deployed there have reportedly been indifferent as the road was constructed by the Local Government Engineering Department without permission from BWDB.
Moreover, expecting the BWDB to eventually widen the road after repairing the dyke, some locals have been felling trees, aged 20-25 years, from both sides of the road and selling those to timber traders.
At least 200 trees along the road were felled in the past few days.
According to sources, BWDB constructed the dyke along the bank of Payra river in the 90s. LGED later constructed an 8km road on the dyke around 12 years back.
Around 1km stretch of the dyke and the road got damaged due to storms and floods over the years.
Milon Mia, a local union parishad member, said he tried to stop the people engaged in stealing the bricks, sand and stones, but nobody listened to him.
The situation arose due to lack of coordination between the two government departments, as the LGED had constructed the road on the dyke without permission from BWDB, he added.
Some locals said nobody stopped them from taking away the road materials.
“BWDB will likely widen the road, which will require many trees on both sides of the road to be felled. As such, everyone is selling the trees, and I purchased some trees for Tk 6,500,” said Kalam Hussain Akon, a timber trader.
Contacted, Arif Hossain, executive engineer of BWDB in Patuakhali, said, “We are repairing a part of the dyke which got damaged at different times.”
“Some locals have been removing the bricks, stones and sand from the paved road on the dyke after we began the repair work. This situation would not have emerged if LGED had coordinated with us in the beginning when it constructed the 8km road on the dyke without out permission. A 1km stretch of the road on the dyke also got damaged,” he added.
Contacted, Hossain Ali Mir, executive engineer of LGED in Patuakhali, said “If BWDB had informed us prior to initiating the dyke repair work, we could have removed and stored the bricks, sand and stones from the road, and repair it after completion of the dyke repair work. BWDB, however, did not inform us.”