With all three pumps of the Ganges-Kobadak (GK) Irrigation Project out of order, hundreds of thousands of farmers in Kushtia, Chuadanga, Jhenaidah and Magura, who depend on water from the GK project for irrigation, are in a deep crisis as they are not getting the irrigation water they need for Boro cultivation.
The Barind region, known as the rice bowl of Bangladesh, faces a great catastrophe with its groundwater levels depleting fast. In this water-stressed region, irrigation tubewells have now become a tool for the people with political clout to exploit farmers. Santal farmers killed selves being deprived of irrigation water
Barind Farmers: At mercy of ‘water lords’ Asia News Network (ANN) is the leading regional alliance of news titles striving to bring the region closer, through an active sharing of editorial content on happenings in the region.
On April 9, Mukul Soren, a Santal farmer in Rajshahi, drank pesticide in a suicide attempt over the same irrigation deep tubewell that allegedly led to the suicide of two farmers, also Santals, last year.