SANDESHKHALI: In a bid to resolve the vexed issue at the heart of Sandeshkhali unrest – grabbing of farmlands and converting them into highly lucrative fish farms by Shiekh Shahjahan and his aides – the Bengal govt on Saturday set itself a pre-monsoon target of reconverting the fish farms or bheris into farmlands.
The process would involve flushing out salt water from the bheris and breaching river embankments to flood them with freshwater to convert them back into agricultural land. The state has till now received 258 complaints of land-grab, of which 100 landowners have been returned their land rights.
“As a first step, we have sealed all possible inlets that allowed influx of saline water into the bheris. More than 100 people in Sandeshkhali have already got back land rights. The land restoration process has begun and we hope the entire process to convert the bheris into farmlands would be completed by one month,” state irrigation minister Partha Bhowmick said.
However, experts feel given that Sandeshkhali is barely 58km from Sundarbans, a month could be a stiff target to drain out salinity. But the state insists it wants to complete the process before monsoons sets in.
Bhowmick, state minister Sujit Bose and a 10-member team of irrigation department officials visited Sandeshkhali on Saturday and held a meeting on ways to reclaim illegally blocked irrigation canals, open sluice gates and restore the farmlands. “The public health and engineering department has already started work on installing pipelines,” Bhowmick said.
While the two ministers heard complaints of villagers, officers inspected sites adjacent to Raimangal, Choto Kalagachi, Viddyadhari, and Betni rivers in Sandeshkhali-Dhamakhali-Minakhan belt.
“We have surveyed several bheris in Sandeshkhali-II. The restoration process has been started,” a senior irrigation official said.
Experts said this isn’t an impossible task but may take a couple of months.
“Flushing out the salt accumulated by seawater in the bheris may not be easy since salinity of rivers peaks during February and March and declines during monsoon. That would be the right time for such flushing exercise. Moreover, rains will also sweep away the salt. At the same time, farmers must sow salt-tolerant paddy varieties with a generous dose of organic manure to bring back the land’s fertility,” said Anupam Pal, an agriculture expert.
(Inputs by Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay in Kolkata)
The process would involve flushing out salt water from the bheris and breaching river embankments to flood them with freshwater to convert them back into agricultural land. The state has till now received 258 complaints of land-grab, of which 100 landowners have been returned their land rights.
“As a first step, we have sealed all possible inlets that allowed influx of saline water into the bheris. More than 100 people in Sandeshkhali have already got back land rights. The land restoration process has begun and we hope the entire process to convert the bheris into farmlands would be completed by one month,” state irrigation minister Partha Bhowmick said.
However, experts feel given that Sandeshkhali is barely 58km from Sundarbans, a month could be a stiff target to drain out salinity. But the state insists it wants to complete the process before monsoons sets in.
Bhowmick, state minister Sujit Bose and a 10-member team of irrigation department officials visited Sandeshkhali on Saturday and held a meeting on ways to reclaim illegally blocked irrigation canals, open sluice gates and restore the farmlands. “The public health and engineering department has already started work on installing pipelines,” Bhowmick said.
While the two ministers heard complaints of villagers, officers inspected sites adjacent to Raimangal, Choto Kalagachi, Viddyadhari, and Betni rivers in Sandeshkhali-Dhamakhali-Minakhan belt.
“We have surveyed several bheris in Sandeshkhali-II. The restoration process has been started,” a senior irrigation official said.
Experts said this isn’t an impossible task but may take a couple of months.
“Flushing out the salt accumulated by seawater in the bheris may not be easy since salinity of rivers peaks during February and March and declines during monsoon. That would be the right time for such flushing exercise. Moreover, rains will also sweep away the salt. At the same time, farmers must sow salt-tolerant paddy varieties with a generous dose of organic manure to bring back the land’s fertility,” said Anupam Pal, an agriculture expert.
(Inputs by Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay in Kolkata)