Synopsis
As part of National Waterway 44, Ichhamati forms a 21km riverine border with Bangladesh and flows through the Ranaghat, Bangaon, Basirhat, and Barasat constituencies. Voters in North 24 Parganas’ Basirhat and Barasat will cast their ballots on June 1.
TNNA river’s fate has emerged as a significant poll issue in West Bengal this year, ToI reported on May 30.
The 288-km-long Ichhamati River meanders through four Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, its basin supporting over 3 million people. The river’s health has lately given rise to serious concern in the area, the report (by Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay) said.
As part of National Waterway 44, Ichhamati forms a 21km riverine border with Bangladesh and flows through the Ranaghat, Bangaon, Basirhat, and Barasat constituencies. Voters in North 24 Parganas’ Basirhat and Barasat will cast their ballots on June 1.
The sizable population of fishermen, farmers, boatmen, and vendors express strong concerns over the river’s deterioration. Nadia Nadi Sansad, a coalition of 14 diverse organizations, has launched a political campaign urging parties to take decisive action. Nadia district, once home to 33 tidal rivers, now has only 10 struggling for survival, with the others having disappeared.
Frustrated by unfulfilled promises, Nadi Sansad members have taken matters into their own hands. They engage with candidates from all political parties, seeking their plans and commitments to revive the Ichhamati. These encounters now follow a fixed ritual: offering a garland followed by a barrage of questions from villagers demanding accountability on issues like the restoration of Ichhamati and the cleanup of Mathabhanga and Churni.
Jyotirmoy Saraswati, a long-time advocate for the Ichhamati River, laments that many candidates fail to grasp the river’s dire condition and its devastating impact on the local population.
“Ichhamati had a wide variety of fish stock, known for their unmatched tastes. Now people in Duttapulia, one of the major trade centres on its bank, survive on fish from Andhra Pradesh,” Nadia Nadi Sansad secretary Sabarna Saraswati, who led a 140km walk along the banks of the river to highlight the issue, told ToI.
Sabarna and local villagers carried out a clean-up of a large area along the river. “Apart from plastic menace, there is overgrowth of phytoplankton, microalgae, and macroalgae, due to increasing flow of nitrogen and phosphorus in the water systems following intensive agricultural and industrial activities. This ultimately results in low oxygen or ‘hypoxic’ areas that jeopardise the health of the river, its aquatic life, and surrounding ecosystem,” he told the newspaper.
Local fishing communities have raised concerns about the deteriorating water quality of the Ichhamati River, which is becoming increasingly inhospitable to aquatic life, particularly immature fish and insects, whose lifecycles are being disrupted due to water hypoxia. The river bears witness to the desperation of the people living around its floodplain.
A former fisherman said people never imagined that they wouldn’t be able to fish in the Ichhamati anymore. The drying Ichhamati bed has made even farming an increasingly difficult job, he added.
Farmers who used to depend on the river for irrigating their land for jute cultivation have now switched to crops like parwal, banana, and rajanigandha that need less water.
According to some accounts, people are now changing profession and migrating to other places. The river’s failing health has caused high levels of migration and a rise in traffic along its banks, some reports say.
Illegal transverse check dams (badhals) have proliferated along the 280km stretch of the Ichhamati River, worsening its condition, ToI’s report said. Constructed with substandard materials and nylon nets, these dams are meant for trapping fish. Members of the fishing community admitted to being unaware of the improper disposal of unusable nets into the river.
