ENVIRONMENT-BANGLADESH: River People Petition World Bank

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO, Sep 13 1996 (IPS) - Several thousand Bangladeshis who lost their homes in heavy storms last May have sent a petition to the World Bank to ask for an independent investigation into their problems.

Hundreds of homes were washed away when the Jamuna, the main waterway in central Bangladesh, swelled during heavy storms.

But the estimated 2,750 villagers who lost their homes say the cause of their distress was the digging of a new diversion channel and the construction of new embankments to make way for a World Bank-funded bridge that will carry road and rail traffic as well as electric and gas lines.

The petition by people in the area, which lies in an alluvial flood plain some 300 kms north of the Bay of Bengal, is to be reviewed by a three-member inspection panel in coming months.

Bank management has until Sep. 25 to give the panel its response to the complaint. The panel will then have 21 days to recommend to the Bank’s board of directors whether the complaint warrants a full investigation.

According to a copy of the complaint, the local people say that their existence is “rooted in the process of erosion and accretion, appearance and disappearance of chars (natural sand islands in the river built up by alluvial deposits).”

“We derive our subsistence from the land and water, the char and the river,” write the complainants. “Our agriculture, fishery, transportation, rituals, social harmony have an inseparable link with the river. Damage to the ecological balance to such a degree because of this kind of human action amounts to a deliberate denial of our right to live and exist.”

Construction of the project started last year after Ismail Mubarak, a World Bank task manager, helped Bangladesh obtain a loan of 200 million dollars in 1994 for the 696-million-dollar, 4.8-km bridge that is to lead from Bhuapur to Seragonj.

World Bank documents state that the project was intended to “help reduce poverty by boosting the viability and profitability of the small-scale informal sector in the northwest,” increasing the profitability of labour-intensive horticultural expansion through reduced transportation uncertainties, delays, and costs.

The construction plans include diverting the Dhaleswari tributary of the river, building new channels, and strengthening embankments. The width of the river could be reduced from some 13 kms to about five kms.

Project designers anticipated having to move about 17,000 people in order to claim 955 hectares of land for the project. Some 60,000 others, according to the Bank, will also be affected.

For these people, the Bank says a “resettlement plan has been developed with community participation,” which ensures that “cash compensation for land acquired will be calculated at the full replacement value of the land.”

Because the islands alter shape with the rains, project officials decided that the best way to map changes would be to compare satellite photographs of the region at the end of each rainy season which is usually in late October.

In order to determine eligibility for compensation, project staff have designed theoretical mathematical models to determine which homes were destroyed as a result of the new developments.

According to reports from the Bangladeshi Daily Star, those people who have been moved were taken to urban-style residential areas. Meanwhile, others continue to live by the river. In the Dorota char, which was severely affected by the May floods, residents say they have received no compensation.

Dorota and the char islands of Boro Peari, Chhoto Peari, Chundni, Hari Banga and Madhurabari, all of which lie on the Sirangonj side of the river, together lost some 400 houses in the floods. On the Bhuapur side, an equal number of homes were threatened.

The village of Alipur which was once part of the mainland has become an island in the river, while the island of Panchasona has been divided into two. And residents of the villages of Boro Koira, Chandgonj, and Gobindapur say they also expect to lose their islands when the river rises next.

Residents say they expect the changes in the river will soon affect their crops which include groundnuts, paddy, sugarcane, sweet potato, water melons, and wheat. Thousands of people have therefore banded together to set up a group named the Jamuna Char Integrated Development Project (JCIDP) to take up their issues with the relevant authorities.

This group has sent letters of complaint to the energy and infrastructure unit of the World Bank’s resident mission in Bangladesh. JCIDP says that the staff at the Dhaka offices of the Bank did organise a couple of meetings to listen to their concerns but that the results were unsatisfactory.

“The Bank has not taken into consideration the miseries of the char people during drawing up the resettlement action plan,” the group wrote.

Bank officials have yet to respond in detail to the complaint. A preliminary statement says, however, that as a group, the char dwellers “have been included in the compensation programme but individuals who may be affected by the project have not yet been surveyed.”

“The Bank has also made it clear that inclusion (in the resettlement programme) would be a phased process,” says the statement.

It says that “until the waters receded after this year’s rainy season and an erosion policy could be developed, the designs and alignment of the bridge finalised, and a review of the impacts takes place, it was not possible to identify individual char dwellers for inclusion in the process.”