Siraj Mahmud , Charfasson (Bhola)

Ten thousand tube wells are about to become useless due to non-rising of water in manual. People are suffering because of not being able to collect pure drinking water.

Health experts fear that children and the elderly will be affected by water-borne diseases due to the acute shortage of water in hospitals and homes.

Since the onset of the dry season, there has been a shortage of fresh water all over Charfasson. Nowhere in Charfasson are manual tube wells pumping water to normal levels. To collect water, men and women are going from one tubewell to another but unable to collect water from these tube wells. As a result, they are in extreme difficulty in collecting fresh water.

According to the sources of Directorate of Public Health and Engineering, in 21 Unions, 10 thousands 73 manual tube wells have been installed in Charfasson. 9 thousand 851 of them are active. 222 are unusable, 28 of them have been renovated. However, according to the information of the Directorate of Public Health and Engineering, the number of tube wells is 10 thousand 73, but the actual number is several times more. Tube wells are installed in most of the houses in private ownership.

It is learnt that due to the increase in land prices, canals and ponds have been encroached upon and the number of these has decreased, farmers have installed deep tube wells and irrigated agriculture, and the ground water level has gone down, so water is not rising in hand-operated tube wells. As a result, there is a shortage of fresh water.

The Directorate of Public Health Engineering says that the water level is not going down due to these reasons alone. Additional tubewell installation in certain areas has also led to shortage of groundwater during the dry season.

Babul Matbar of Char Madras Union said, due to the increase in the land price, canals, ponds and drains are becoming worse. As a result, fresh water cannot be extracted in hand-operated tube wells due to the lowering of the underground water level. As a result, water is not available for household work including cooking.

Sohag Master, assistant teacher of Uttar Madras Mahila Dakhil Madrasa, said that the occupied ponds, canals and canals are getting filled up, as there is no water flow in the dead canals, submersible deep tube wells are being installed and underground water is being used in agricultural land.

Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) Charfasson Upazila Deputy Assistant Engineer, Arif Hossain said, we do not allow installation of submersible pumps to extract water from underground. Irrigation approval is mainly for extracting water from river canals. 1 thousand 728 irrigation pumps are being extracted by private ownership. The number of setting up illegal tube wells is not known.

Charfasson Upazila Public Health Engineering Engineer Feroz said that we are getting information from different areas that water is not rising in hand-operated tube wells. In this time of last year too the ground water level has gone down. This problem occurs during the dry season. There is no problem in monsoon season. This problem has arisen due to unplanned damming of ponds and installation of illegal irrigation pumps.