Water table falling by 2ft a year in Barind area

22 March 2009, 18:00 PM

Anwar Ali, Rajshahi

With drastic fall of water table in Barind area, this newly sunk 150-feet deep tube-well at Samaspur village in Godagari upazila occasionally fails to draw water.Photo: STAR

Villagers in Barind Tract area in Godagari upazila are always after water as the underground water table is going down by 1 to 2 feet every year. There were 13 semi-deep tube-wells for providing drinking water to some 130 families at Somaspur. All but four tube-wells were abandoned in the last one month as water went out of reach. "We had set up a pump for water at a depth of 100 feet in front of Somaspur mosque. As it didn't work the next year, we set up a 135 feet semi-deep tube-well near the pump", villager Kalu Miah, 65, was describing the ordeal. "We were happy with it although it was not satisfactory during the dry seasons. But it too turned useless around 20 days ago", Kalu said. Lately the villagers sank a new tube-well with 150 feet pipe at neighbouring Notunpara. "This tube-well is also not working well for the last seven days", said Adori Begum who went there to collect water. "When this tube-well doesn't work, we go for water from deep tube-wells a few miles away", said Zinnatun Nesa, another housewife of the village. "We may not be dying, but we are suffering a lot for water", said Zolekha Begum. When this correspondent visited Somaspur Saturday, many villagers rushed to him to know whether he had come to set up a fresh tube-well. The picture is nothing better at neighbouring Badharipara, Maldippur and in other upazilas of Barind Tract consisting of Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapainawabganj districts. "Every year the underground water table is going down by minimum 1 to 2 feet deeper", said Abdul Mannan, Director of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA). Some 11,000 deep tube-wells are in operation in the entire Barind tract for irrigation of some 3 lakh hectares, he informed, adding that use of excessive underground water against lesser recharge is causing the fast depletion. "The mighty Padma is shrinking and many of its tributaries are drying up for want of rainfall while the underground water is still in use", Mannan pointed out. Khalikuzzaman, additional chief engineer of BMDA who monitors the water table, informed that at some places of Godagari, the water level this year fell to 150 feet against 145 last year. But in hard Barind areas like Godagari and Tanore in Rajshahi, Nachol in Chapainawabganj, irrigation is less affected as farmers there are dependent on BMDA deep tube-wells, said Mannan. In low Barind areas like Bagmara and Mohonpur, most farmers use shallow tube-wells which affect irrigation, said Braja Hari Das, deputy director of Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE). According to the villagers and farmers, the groundwater level depletion is causing land subsidence and crisis of drinking water and hampering groundwater-based irrigation. In Barobigha village at Risikul union in Godagari, a BMDA deep tube-well house subsided by more than 20 feet two years ago for which it was shifted to some 250 yards away.