Hasina reopens Mongla-Ghashiakhali channel skirting Sundarbans for freighters

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has opened the Mongla-Ghashiakhali channel to freighter service.

The channel provides a bypass route to vessels from the sea to Mongla Port, avoiding the ecologically sensitive Sundarbans.

Freighter services along the Sundarbans were shut down under pressure from environmentalists, political parties and other pressure groups following a tanker wreck in the Shela river in 2014.

Simultaneously, the need to open an alternate route bypassing the Sundarbans was felt to cut short the voyage from the sea to the port in Mongla.

On Thursday, the prime minister inaugurated the dredged channel through video conferencing from the Ganabhaban.

"The Sundarbans is our asset. We exist because of the Sundarbans. It shields the country from several calamities," she said.

Hasina added the channel had become a necessity to avoid compromising with the safety of the Sundarbans.

The Mongla-Ghashiakhali channel was started in 1974 during the tenure of the Bangabandhu government.

No successive governments attempted to keep it operational.

The prime minister pointed out the fact and wondered, "Those in power for 21 years did nothing for the Mongla-Ghashiakhali channel. On the contrary, they were about to close the port down."

"Our ships began to sail in the Shela river. That is not good for the Sundarbans," she observed.

The 1980s saw the mouths of the several smaller canals feeding the channel closed for shrimp breeding and polder making.

This practice completely dried up the channel in the next 30 years.

Under Hasina's direction, dredging of the channel began in 2014 and in 2015, experimental runs along the channel were permitted.

Taking a dig at environmentalists opposing the Rampal thermal plant, she said she was amazed to see them 'weeping' because of a plant which is being built a good 14 miles away.

"But I never saw anyone weep, anyone protest, anyone speak anything when the Sunderbans was being destroyed through ship movement."

The BIWTA has dredged up 21 kilometres of the 31 channels to a depth of 13-14 feet and to a width of 200-300 feet.

The route cuts down sailing distance between the port and the sea by 81 km.

A total of Tk 2.5 billion has been spent on dredging up the channel.