Once a lifeline for 30 lakh, dying river turns into poll issue
Times of India | 30 May 2024
KOLKATA: During its 288km journey, Ichhamati river snakes through four Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal while its basin supports more than 30 lakh people. Its health has been pitchforked into a poll issue in this general elections.
A part of National Waterway 44, Ichhamati also forms a 21km riverine border with Bangladesh. The river courses through four Lok Sabha constituencies — Ranaghat, Bangaon, Basirhat, and Barasat.North 24 Parganas’s Basirhat and Barasat go to polls on June 1.
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Tired of empty promises, Nadi Sansad members have taken matters into their own hands. They engage with candidates from all political parties to find out their plans and commitment to revive Ichhamati. A fixed ritual accompanies these encounters now — the offering of a garland followed by a barrage of questions from villagers demanding accountability on issues like Ichhamati’s restoration and the cleanup of Mathabhanga and Churni.
Jyotirmoy Saraswati, a veteran Ichhamati crusader, laments the lack of understanding among many candidates regarding the river’s dire situation and its devas tating impact on people.
“Ichhamati had a wide variety of fish stock, known for their unmatched tastes. Now people in Duttapulia, one of the major trade centres on its bank, survive on fish from Andhra Pradesh,” said Nadia Nadi Sansad secretary Sabarna Saraswati, who led a 140km walk along the banks of the Ichhamati to save the dying river.
Sabarna and local villagers cleaned up more than 12km of the river. “Apart from plastic menace, there is overgrowth of phytoplankton, microalgae, and macroalgae, due to increasing flow of nitrogen and phosphorus in the water systems following intensive agricultural and industrial activities. This ultimately results in low oxygen or ‘hypoxic’ areas that jeopardise the health of the river, its aquatic life, and surrounding ecosystem,” he said.
Local fishermen have pointed to concerns over the deteriorating water quality which is increasingly becoming inhospitable to aquatic life particularly immature fish and insects as their lifecycle is dwindled because of water hypoxia. Ichhamati is a witness of the desperation of people living around its flood plain. “Farmers grow crops on 30,000 acres of floodplain of Ichhamati spreading across these four parliamentary constituencies. As many as 40,000 fishers are dependent on the river,” said Jyotirmoy.
Arjun Mandal, once a fisherman, has been compelled to do transition farming as fish ing in Ichhamati river became untenable. Reflecting on the change, he said: “We never imagined we wouldn’t be able to fish in the Ichhamati anymore. The drying Ichhamati bed has made even farming an increasingly difficult job to sustain my family.”
Abdul Khaleq Malita from Srirampur, Nadia, used to rely on the Ichhamati for irrigating his land for jute cultivation. Now, he has switched to crops like parwal, banana, and rajanigandha that require less water. Fisherman Sunil Kumar Haldar, who became a farmer and now a contractor, lamented his desperate need to change professions due to the river’s decline: “People are now migrating to survive. Ichhamati’s decline has triggered alarming levels of migration and an uptick in traffic along its banks.”
Amit Kumar Biswas, a schoolteacher and river activist from Bongaon, highlighted the ripple effects. “The drying of Ichhamati has impacted other water bodies like tanks and ponds, exacerbating water crises in summer. The numerous unlicensed brick kilns lining the riverbanks are causing extensive pollution.”
Downstream, beyond Berigopalpur ghat in Basirhat, the river does not resemble its dying upstream.
“But it is completely tidal saline water from the sea,” said Bishnupada Mridhha, who works with farmers and fishermen at Hingalganj in Basirhat parliamentary constituency. With the flow of the sweetwater having stopped completely, the lower course of Ichhamati, also known as Kalindi, in Basirhat, resulted in incursion of saline water into the groundwater table at an alarming rate. In a wide area of Panchapalli, no tubewell below 600 metres gives us sweet water. It is only saline water, unusable for drinking or irrigation,” he added.
Illegal transverse check dams (badhals) have mushroomed along the 280km stretch of the Ichhamati, exacerbating its plight. These dams, constructed with substandard materials and nylon nets, are intended for fish trapping. Members of the fishing community admitted ignorance regarding the improper disposal of unusable nets into the river.
“There was an attempt to dredge from Tentulia to Kalanchi for 23.4km to achieve a navigable depth of 1.5 metres all along the river. A budget of Rs 3.77 crore was sanctioned. But only a little could be achieved. The state govt decided to prepare a master plan for the restoration of the river,” said an officer in the state water resources investigation and development department.