Abstract
Barind Tract of Bangladesh, located in its North-West region is a drought prone water stressed area facing serious setback in water management for agriculture, drinking, domestic and other uses. Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) has been working relentlessly to overcome such hostile situation introducing, devising and adopting various techniques, methods and technologies in an integrated way since 1986. So, the aim of present study is to discuss the attemptsand find the impacts of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) activities taken by BMDA for groundwater and surface water augmentation, rainwater harvesting, drinking water supply and irrigation water management. In this view necessary data and information related to the water resources development and managementactivities were collected from BMDA, field investigation and other sources and analyzed them. The study finds that due to IWRM approaches in water resources augmentation and management activities of BMDA, rainfall dependent single cropped land has been converted multi cropped land, water losses have been reduced, rural people are getting potable drinking water and the desert like Barind Tract area has been converted into a granary one. Attention needs to be given to augment and use more surface water as well as rainwater and maintain the irrigation and drinking water infrastructures on a regular basis for sustainable crop production, drinking and other uses of water.
Highlights
The part of greater Rajshahi, Rangpur, Dinajpur and Bogra district of Bangladesh and Indian territorial Maldah district of west Bengal is geographically identified as Barind Tract
Different data like information about Deep Tube Wells (DTWs) for groundwater extraction, re-excavated canals, ponds, cross dam, rubber dam for surface water augmentation, dug well and recharge well for rain water harvesting and groundwater recharge, buried pipe line, drinking water supply installations, prepaid meter for irrigation water management and other necessary information have been collected from the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA), field investigation and other sources
Due to installation of 15882 numbers of DTWs along with prepaid meter and 13292 km buried pipe line, 522000 hectares of land are under groundwater irrigation and 97000 hectares are under surface water irrigation because of reexcavating 3098 numbers of derelict ponds, 2001 km canals along with 747 numbers of cross dam, river water irrigation by installing 11 pontoons with pumps on the river Padma, Mohananda and Atrai and constructing a rubber dam across the river Barnai
Summary
The part of greater Rajshahi, Rangpur, Dinajpur and Bogra district of Bangladesh and Indian territorial Maldah district of west Bengal is geographically identified as Barind Tract. After cultivation of T-Amon, the land remained uncultivated for the rest time of the year and used as the grassing land for the cattle and farmers did not have any work to do Because of this reason people of this area were too poor and regularly migrated to other places of the country in search of job. The average irrigation cost for Private Practiced Irrigation System (PPIS) is about 112% higher than the Prepaid Meter Irrigation System (PMIS) and the average irrigation water quantity for PPIS is 39% higher than the PMIS [23] In this system irrigation charge is realized automatically and no scope of pending irrigation charge. Any tempering or tempering attempt can be identified from the meter
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