Bangladesh government on Tuesday published a primary list of 1,156 rivers across the country to finalise rivers’ list by the next Bengali New Year after necessary verification.
The ministry of shipping and the water resources ministry jointly would prepare the unified list since the different agencies of the government maintain different lists of rivers that created controversy.
Environment and water resources ministry Syeda Rizwana Hasan asked the land ministry to come forward to solve the confusion.
‘If records miss any river name, I will instruct DCs to verify and send them to us. The list of rivers must be accurate. Our work will not end with publishing the final list on Pahela Baishakh,’ she said at an event at Pani Bhaban in the capital.
She said that once they could make the list of rivers, they would include details such as the length, width, condition, and other characteristics of each river. The list will incorporate both official and local names of rivers.
Shipping adviser Brig Gen Shakhawat Hossain said that the rivers should be reclaimed now.
‘I will support the river reclaim drive to make them free from pollution,’ he said.
The seminar also revealed that the National River Protection Commission’s 2023 list recorded 1,008 rivers.
From this list, 224 rivers were not proposed for inclusion in the current list from field-level data.
Similarly, out of 405 rivers listed by the Bangladesh Water Development Board in 2011, 18 were excluded from field-level proposals for the current list.
