Story of the Mystic River- BURIGANGA

The Buriganga River, one of the dirtiest rivers in the world, has served as the central artery to economic life in Dhaka for centuries. The river provides access to Bangladesh’s myriad waterways for launches and country boats, promoting small and medium scale enterprises. In addition to the commercial benefits derived from the river, the Buriganga has offered Dhaka City a constant water supply, groundwater recharge, recreation and fisheries, as well as support for agricultural, sanitation and industrial purposes.

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, with a population of almost 10 million, is built on the banks of the Buriganga. Since most of the waste is not collected by the city, it ends up in the river water, where a good many factories also discharge their chemical waste. Result: the water is so polluted that no fish can survive there. Once a catalyst for trade and a source of growth, the Buriganga River has been degraded by industrial and residential developments along its banks and in its catchments. Despite the other common utilities, Buriganga River is important to maintain the groundwater level in Dhaka.

1.Toxic Discharge from chemical factory getting added to Buriganga through this canal. 2. Daily activities of people around Buriganga adds to the pollution level. 3. A boy swims in the polluted waters in the Buriganga river. 4. A boy collects rubbish on the river Buriganga. 5. Manual dyers are mostly responsible for river pollution as they rampantly throw leftover chemicals into the water.

Sharif Jamal is going to steer the Waterkeeper Alliance in Bangladesh initially as the Buriganga Riverkeepr. The Buriganga Riverkeeper will patrol the river Buriganga on behalf of the citizens of Bangladesh to save this life-line of Dhaka from encroachment and pollution. This ground-breaking initiative aims to organize and engage stakeholders across the social and political spectra to build public awareness and drive community action to reverse the degradation of the vital Buriganga River.

At the beginning of January2010, the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) began to clean a 3km stretch of the river. It estimates that 300,000 cubic metres of rubbish need to be removed from the water. Five bulldozers were put at work to get rid of the three-meter layer of plastic bags and food remains which lines the bottom of the river, while over a hundred people clean the rubbish-strewn banks by hand. The cost of this programme, financed by the environment ministry, comes to over 2.5 million euros.

It is now a dying river and the situation will get worse if some immediate actions are not taken urgently to reverse the trend.