Save the Moyur Campaign: Save Moyur for Water Security in Khulna

A big rally show has been conducted in Khulna city focusing on ‘Save the Moyur for Water Security in Khulna’. This rally was organized by the Environmental Science Discipline of Khulna University with support from the IWFM and ILS. The rally  started from Khulna University campus and ended at the Khulna city. A total of 200 participants, mostly Khulna University students and faculty took part in the rally organized on June 25, 2012. Several daily news papers covered this rally in their news papers. 

Showdown of the participants before the rally

Rally started from the KU campus

The Moyur is the only freshwater river in Khulna. However, this river has been dying due to illegal encroachments and pollution discharges. The Moyur can be a potential source of freshwater in Khulna. Thus, BUET Team started to work to save the river through  action research inputs since 2010. This rally was a part of  awareness building activities of ‘Save the Moyur Campaign’. the team believes that a larger stakeholders’ platform may save the river for  future water security in urban and peri-urban Khulna.   

Dr. Hamidul Huq of ILS  showing a poster, ‘Secure Water for Future Generation’

 ‘Save the Moyur Campaign’ in Khulna city

Tree plantation

On the occasion of the ‘World Environment Day 2012’, a tree plantation program was also arranged by the ESD of KU with financial support from the peri-urban project. A total of 20 local species of trees were planted in the KU campus. Honorable pro-vice Chancellor of Khulna University  attended this program. the faculty was present for plating the trees. Professor Dr. Salma Begum  palnted the first tree.

 Honorable Pro-vice Chancellor is planting a tree at KU campus. 

Professor Dr. Salma Begum of ESD  planting a tree at KU campus.

Art Competition

Honorable Vice-chancellor Professor Dr. Saifuddin Shah  judging the art competition.

An art competition was held at the Khulna University, Bangladesh on 22 June 2012 (Friday). This art competition was conducted on the occasion of the World Environment Day 2012. This year the main theme was ‘Green Economy: Does it include you’. To celebrate the World Environment Day, Environmental Science Discipline (ESD) of Khulna University (KU)  organized this art competition with support from the IWFM of BUET and the Institute of Livelihoods Studies (ILS). Honorable Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr. Saifuddin Shah visited the art competition ceremony organized at the ESD of KU. About 120 students  attended the art competition. The students were divided into three groups: Nursery (Class I), Junior Group (Class II to V) and Secondary Group (Class VI to X). The themes of the art competition were: the River Moyur, Water resources and Agriculture fields. Three winners were selected from each cluster/group. A prize giving ceremony was also held at the University Auditorium where Honorable Pro-Vice Chancellor, Professor Dr. Fayekuzzaman, handed over the prizes to the winners. In the ceremony, Director of the Student Affairs of KU, Dean of the Life Science School, Department Head and associated faculty were also present.

Evaluation session of the art competition

Junior artists of the art competition.

Agarian Bangladesh, this was drawn by a student

Prize giving ceremony: winners of the art competition

Second Stakeholders’ meeting in Gurgaon – Participation of women representatives from the intervention villages

Recently, on 22^nd June, Gurgaon team organized the second stakeholders’ meeting. The meeting was attended by 8 members from Sultanpur village, including two women representatives, and 4 members from Jhanjhrola Khera. PHED was represented by 1 Sub-divisional Engineer (SDE), 2 Junior Engineers and 2 staff from admin. One of the highlights of the meeting was participation by women representatives from villages. In order to mobilise women representatives from Jhanjhrola Khera and Sultanpur, team members from Gurgaon visited both the villages. In Sultanpur, team members could interact with couple of women Panchs from the village. They were told about the rationale behind organizing the stakeholders’ meeting. They agreed to come to the meeting and also assured that another woman Panch would also come on the day of the meeting. The team members then moved to Jhanjhrola Khera in order to interact with women representatives from the village. In Jhanjhrola Khera, team members spoke to couple of women Panchs and were ensure their participation on the day of the workshop. There were indications that another woman Panch from Jhanjhrola Khera would also come.

On the day of the workshop, a vehicle had been arranged to get women from the village and then drop them back after the meeting. Surprisingly, none of the women Panchs from Jhanjhrola Khera agreed to come for the meeting. One of them said that she had to go to a doctor, whereas the other one simply did not want to travel such a long distance and come to Gurgaon! Eventually, on the day of the meeting, two women Panchs from Sultanpur village came for the meeting. One of the women, amongst the two, belonged to a low caste, but she was able to put forward her points during the meeting. She raised the issue that in Sultanpur village, there was no water connections or pipes beyond the railway line, which was making it difficult for women in this section of village to access water. By the end of the meeting, PHED officials had agreed to survey this particular area and if satisfied with the water quality would arrange for setting a tubewell. The team considers this as an achievement, as women representatives generally do not have any say, even during Panchayat meetings, when they are represented by their male counterparts. However, during the second stakeholders’ meeting they were provided a platform to voice their opinion and by the end of the meeting, the team felt that they could actively do so. 

Understanding Peri urbanization process in Guwahati and Patna

Peri urbanization is one of the most complex processes often fuelled by land acquisition and nurtured by unplanned urban growth.  The consequence of this process has not only being manifested in the intensification of city’s fringe areas but has a whole lot of environmental, social and political repercussions. In fact the understanding of the basic term ‘peri urban’ has changed from rural fringe areas that surround the cities to a zone of co-existence of both rural and urban characteristics and the linkages and flows between them. Some scholars argue that peri-urban is better understood as a process, rather than a place. This makes the very understanding of peri urbanization process complex and thus requiring considerable probing. With this intend in mind SaciWATERs has undertaken a field study of two  cities namely Patna and Guwahati to assess the degree and extent of peri-urbanization process.

Guwahati to lose her pristine ecology at the wake of rapid peri urbanization

Guwahati always has a rich natural resource base of forests, hills and natural wetlands. Interestingly, for the past 10 years, the city has experienced deranged growth leading to drastic change in its land use and land cover. In a span of two years (2010-2012) metropolitan area of the city expanded from 262sq km to about 318.72 sq km engulfing vast stretch of rural hinterland. Travelling in the outskirts along transit corridors of NH31 and 37 clearly shows fast developing peri urban landscapes consisting of an intense mixture of agriculture, industry, commercial and residential use. Vast agricultural land and several water bodies have been filled to give place to high rise apartments.  Disappearing wetlands, decreasing forest cover and declining cultivable area has not only disrupted the natural ecosystem but also displaced many of the aboriginal tribes like Kargies, Boros, Garos generally occupying these fringe areas. Peri urbanization has also affected the agricultural practices in these fringe villages. Traditional paddy variety got replaced by hybrid one, ground water irrigation became rampant, cropping pattern moved from food crops to cash crops.

Intensive rock cutting has increased soil erosion

 and loss of bio diversity

Discussions with policy makers, researchers, academicians and civil society organizations have time and again surfaced the issue of ecosystem disruption due to unplanned city growth. They all agreed to the fact that peri urbanization has caused the city to lose a considerable amount of its land of high ecological value. Invasion of city’s space into the rural hinterland has disrupted the micro ecosystem of forest, wetlands and hilly landscape. Encroachment into the forest area for either residential or commercial purposes has increased soil erosion. Mr. Semata Kalita of Center for Environment and Education spoke about the problem of hill cutting, soil erosion, siltation and associated urban flooding. To him siltations of the open drains mostly due flash floods from the surrounding hills have increased the frequency and duration of urban flooding over the years.   Besides, thinning down of forest cover has promoted illegal poaching and selling of woods to the Meghalaya border. Hill cutting for construction of hotels or institutes has forced the animals to intrude into the human habitation. In fact frequent attacks of elephants and panthers have been reported for last two years.

Degrading Deepar Beel

Deepar beel which is one of the protected sites under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, 1971, is an important case in point here. A majority of the biological wealth of the beel is in a state of gradual depletion due to the increased impact of human interference.  Map 3 shows the areal extent of Deeper beel in 2010. The area in and around the beel has been heavily encroached upon for the last couple of years. In fact, The Institute of advance study in Science and Technology in situated right on the southern part of the beel. The beel is suffering from environmental degradation mainly because of encroachment and waste dumping. With the fast expanding city build up spaces, it has become easy dumping ground of the solid waste. In fact the one of the dumping site of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) is Paschim Boragaon Garchuk, which is closer to the beel. The site now faces various natural and anthropogenic threats, primarily from the development of road network, industries within the periphery of the site, illegal hunting of wild animals and deforestation. Deeper beel or any of these water bodies which manages to exist against the speeding peri urbanization have become lifeless pond, cutoff from the natural sources of streams or interlinking drainages. A study done by a local NGO called Environ, on the importance of Deepor Beel onto the life of four fringe villages, shows severity of the  destruction and its associated stress on the life of the people directly or indirectly depending on it.

City Experiencing rapid urban growth: The tale of Patna

Patna, like any other 35 million plus cities in India is undergoing dramatic changes in physical, social and cultural spaces.  The total Urban Agglomeration population is about 1,707,429, in addition daily commuters and floating population, like, tourists etc is estimated to be around 2 lakhs (Poverty Pockets Assessment Study 2009). Such whooping population along with unplanned urbanization has left to city to struggle with several ecological, social and cultural stresses. In absence of any revised master plan the city started showing the signs of decay both within and along its fringes. Based on key person interviews and visual assessment of the selected peri-urban sites the report attempts to throw light on critical ecological, social, health and governance issue associated with peri urbanization process of patna.  Attempts have been made to capture initiatives undertaken by stakeholders in addressing some of the grueling issues of peri urban Patna

Over the last 5-6 years Patna has gone multiple transformations—physical, morphological, socio-demographic, cultural, economic and functional in its peri urban interface. It became a space constituting of underprivileged settlers (migration to the cities by the rural poor and the resettlement of slum dwellers from the city after the demolition of their homes) coexisting with urban affluent. This has resulted into diverse and conflicting stakes, culminating into several environmental and socio economic hazards. Wetlands encroached by buildings, random dumping of solid waste, illegal constructions of industries and degraded environment  is a common scene all along  National Highway 30 (NH-30) that  connects PUA to its hinterland. Following section attempts to highlight several environment, health and governance related issues involved with peri urban Patna.

Heaps of Garbage is found everywhere 

in and around the city’s periphery

Patna city is struggling with managing its solid waste. Talking with both academicians and civil society organizations revealed that solid waste management  is among the most poorly rendered services here – the systems applied are unscientific, out dated and inefficient; and population coverage is extremely low. There is no specified landfill site and the wastes are dumped in the low-lying areas along the periphery.  Situation is all the more worse in the fringe areas coming outside the ambit of the Patna Municipal Corporation. Heaps of untreated wastes all along the bypass have become the root cause for several physical and health hazards. Problem not only lies in dumping the waste, but also the mode of transport use and the time of dumping. Mostly uncovered vehicle is used to transport the waste, resulting into frequent droppings. Besides, there is no fixed time for dumping.   During rainy season such heaps of environmentally hazardous waste becomes the source of critical water borne diseases. There is no practice of storing the waste at source in a scientifically segregated way. Citizens have not been educated to keep domestic, trade, and institutional bins for storage of waste at source and stop littering on the streets. Problem of solid waste management is crucial for Patna, yet very few NGOs are actually working towards this. Officials from Patna Urban Development Authority informed about the efforts undertaken in systematic management of the wastes. Current year under Urban Infrastructure and Governance Scheme (UIG) Ramky Environ Engg Ltd and A to Z are entrusted to execute Municipal solid waste management for Patna and Integrated SWM in Patna urban agglomerations. As a part of these schemes a landfill site has been identified in the outskirts of city in Khagol.

Discussion with the farmers in 

Maner about the arsenic pollution

Ground water is the main source in Patna and its fringes. Over the last 10 years groundwater extraction has increased particularly in the outskirts in order to cater to the ever mounting demand of newly established commercial, residential and up market colonies. Discussion with the stakeholders pointed out that Patna is still not facing shortage in the supply of water per se, as the city manages to exploit its rich ground water reserve.  However, researchers and academicians working intensively with groundwater have a different opinion to share. Dr. Ashok Ghosh of A.N College, Patna mentioned that the way ground water usage is increasing, very soon the whole Patna will be transformed from water rich to water scare city. Discussions with Dr. Ghosh further revealed that the immediate problem associated with groundwater is of arsenic. He reportedly mentioned that most of the shallow aquifer of the Patna Peri Urban Areas of Danapur, Maner etc are heavily affected by arsenic. Shallow tube/bore wells, which are predominant in these fringe areas, are thus more susceptible to arsenic pollution. Discussion with the villagers in Maner block of Patna made it very evident that people are not aware of this grave problem.  There is lack of efforts both from Government and NGO site in terms of addressing this issue effectively and urgently.

Like poor drainage condition, sanitation, in terms of construction of toilets, improved hygiene practices is extremely poor in Patna more so in peri urban area. Majority of the squatter settlements lack public laboratories, leaving no option but to opt for open defecation. Initiatives undertaken in Total Sanitation campaign has failed to generate desired results. Civil society activities complained about the corruption and nexus among Government and service providers for poor performance.