90% of haor paddy harvested: Deputy Minister

Farmers have harvested 90 percent of Boro paddy in haor areas, said AKM Enamul Haque Shamim, deputy minister for water resources.

“The remaining ten percent paddy in haor areas will be harvested soon,” he told reporters, after inspecting the progress of work on the protection project of Padma’s Naria-Jajira of Shariatpur district on Friday.

Due to the timely steps of the government, the farmers of haor areas have avoided a huge loss, he said.

There are 2,22,805 hectares of haor across the country. Of these, only 5,765 hectares of haor crops have been damaged.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is inquiring about the situation in the haors regularly.  The Ministry of Water Resources, Water Development Board, District Administration and Agriculture Department are working together as per PM’s directions.

For the sake of haor people, holidays of the officials and employees of the Water Development Board have been canceled. The ministry is working on adopting a plan to solve the problem of haor permanently.

The deputy minister said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced the implementation of Delta Plan-2100 to build a developed Bangladesh in the future. The Ministry of Water Resources will implement 80 per cent of the work of this master plan. If this master plan is implemented, there will be no problem of river erosion and waterlogging in the whole country.

The Ministry of Water Resources and the Water Development Board are working tirelessly to implement this master plan, he said.