Ganga-Padma river: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury writes to PM, flags ‘perpetual erosion’ in 3 West Bengal districts

New Delhi [India], December 27 (ANI): Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the alarming situation caused by the “perpetual river erosion” along the banks of the Ganges and the Padma across the districts of Malda, Murshidabad and Nadia in West Bengal and urged PM to tackle the decades-old problem of erosion during the ‘Namami Gange’ review meeting which is scheduled to be held in Kolkata.

As a five-time elected MP from the district of Murshidabad, He raised the above-mentioned issue in the Parliament umpteen times but no long-term river erosion resistance project has yet been undertaken with due seriousness to save thousands of people from falling victims to the recurrent tragedy wrought by river erosion.

“To bring to your kind notice the alarming situations caused by the almost perpetual erosion along the banks of the Ganges and the Padma across the districts of Malda, Murshidabad and Nadia and to the agonised cries of thousands of people who have lost their agricultural lands, houses and other assets,” the letter read.

“Up to 2004, the Ganges had eroded 356 square km of fertile land and displaced around 80,000 people in the period 1988 – 1994, in Murshidabad district. Erosion along the banks of the Ganga had washed away more than 50 houses, two temples and acres of agricultural land in the Shamserganj area of Murshidabad district in 2020,” he wrote in a letter to PM Modi.

“The disaster fell upon them like a bolt from the blue. The prosperous farmers happened to be beggars having lost their houses and means of earning. However, this is not a new phenomenon to the people of the aforementioned districts; their tragedy continues for two and a half decades.

In short, the loss suffered by West Bengal is enormous in terms of the damage to public utilities, private property and agricultural land.

It’s doubtless a matter of deep concern that over the past two decades, an estimated 2,800 hectares of fertile land had been washed away by the river and that the damage to properties, public and private, amounted to Rs 1,000 crore,” he added.

Mentioning that river bank erosion and flooding led to a catastrophic situation in Malda district in 2021, the Congress MP said, “Manikchak, Baishnabnagar, Ratua, and Mothabari have been facing river erosion on an unprecedented scale.

In the last five years, about 12 mouzas (administrative units) had gone beneath the Ganges due to embankment erosion; that year, about three lakh residents, including the Maldaha town, faced the alarming threat of river bank erosion. That year alone, more than 4,500 people lost their homes to the river owing to river bank erosion. Buildings housing primary schools also met with a similar fate”.

In February 2022, 400 square km of agricultural land across Malda, Murshidabad and Nadia districts have gone beneath the Ganges.