Salim Moshiur, Comilla South

From the city to the rural areas of the greater Laksam upazila in southern Cumilla, due to the irresponsibility and silent spectator role of the district-upazila agriculture and fisheries departments, thousands of fish farms are swallowing up thousands of hectares of cultivated agricultural land and unpaved roads worth thousands of crores of taka in this region.

Although there is a rule to build separate fences (protection dams) along the roads when constructing fishing projects on rural roads in upazilas, no one is following it.

Although the owners of those fishing projects use government roads as fences, no legal action is being taken against them. However, although the government has already issued registration rules for fish farmers from the local fisheries department, the government order has been tied up in red tape due to the irresponsibility and lack of sincerity of the concerned administration. Apart from this, there is no end to the controversy over the management of government fisheries in this region and the lease of government ponds and reservoirs. The existence of the fish fences and unpaved roads seems to be under threat due to the severe floods in the current year.

It is learnt that the lower reaches of the greater Laksam upazila in the southern part of the district are suffering from losses of several thousand crores of taka in total due to fishing. The fishing projects here have been built by using government roads as fences for the fish projects and blocking the mouths of culverts to obstruct the drainage path. Even when the water of the monsoon season has gone, the water is artificially trapped inside the project. As a result, since there is water on one side of the road and not on the other, the water on one side gradually weakens the roads and cracks first form.

The cracks gradually grow and collapse towards the project. Most of the unpaved and brick rural roads in the unions of the upazilas are under threat and at least hundreds of unpaved roads, including several roads, have already been destroyed. Traffic on these roads is now risky. In addition, due to the lack of sincerity of the concerned authorities, in most of the areas of this region, fish farming has been increasing in arable agricultural land for the last few years, which is why agricultural land is constantly decreasing. The lower areas of the area are often submerged in waterlogging at the beginning of the rainy season.

Nearly fifty connection canals including the Dakatia River flowing through this region have been forcibly occupied and filled in some places, blocking all the ways for water to flow down. On the other hand, in 8 unions of the upazila including Laksam municipality, there are about 4,470 ponds covering 1,495 hectares of land, 9 fishermen's cooperative societies, 93 fisheries multifunctional cooperative societies, 8 fishermen's societies, 8 fishermen's societies and 3,170 anonymous societies involved in fish farming. The Upazila Fisheries Department could not rise above the controversy in many areas in the implementation of various projects of the current fiscal year. Besides, there are 56 government ponds, 18 canals, 16 fish hatcheries, 94 fish nursery ponds, 10 shrimp farmers, 308 commercial fish farms, 867 fishermen and 1650 fish farmers. On the other hand, there are 19 agro-ecological zones in 168 villages of 8 unions including the municipal area.

The amount of cultivated agricultural land is 10,332 hectares, and the total cropland is 22,060 hectares. In 11 unions of Manoharganj Upazila, there are about 30,000 hectares of cropland in 167 villages, 822 fish farmers, 1,750 fishermen, 55 fishmongers, 113 small and large fish farms, about 2,300 ponds, more than 150 fences, 2 fish hatcheries, and 24 fish nurseries. However, the number of private ones is almost twice as high.

Several environmental leaders from the upazilas said on the phone that if the use of government unpaved roads as fences for fishing projects is not stopped, the communication system will be seriously damaged. Then the common people of the area will have to suffer more.

Several officials of the local government department said that the roads are collapsing due to the owners of fishing projects using the roads as embankments for fish farming. Although there is a rule to build a separate fence six feet away from the road to cultivate fish, the project owners are not following it. A few days ago, the Shahapur-Kharkharia connecting road in Maneharganj collapsed along with trees and bushes after 5/6 months of construction.

Several officials of the district and upazila fisheries departments said, "Farmers of the fisheries project cultivate fish on their private land, so many times we have nothing to do except verbal warnings."