Man-made sewage crisis spells doom for Kolkata wetlands

KOLKATA: The East Kolkata Wetlands that was internationally recognized as a Ramsar site for its wise use as natural sewage treatment facility is being smothered. The flow of sewage into the fish farms or bheris has been deliberately reduced in an attempt to snuff out fishery and farming and make way for conversion of the land into real estate.
“The flow of sewage has systematically reduced over the past decade and now we are getting only half the required quantity.Since the fish cultivated in EKW depend on sewage for nutrients, lack of adequate flow is forcing us to purchase feed from market to sustain production. This is escalating production cost and making the business unviable,” said fish farmer Ratan Sardar of Dakshin Gorumara.
Over the past three years, scores of bheris have changed hands. Fish farming has ceased in some bheris with new owners paying off fishermen to exit the trade. There are also men — claiming to represent the government — who are doing the rounds and advising fishermen to quit the business citing a central law that prohibits flow of waste water into wetlands.
“There is a subtle yet concerted effort to discourage people from fishing. Once people lose livelihood and are left with huge tracts of land, they will sell out,” pointed out wetland activist Bonani Kakkar, whose PIL in the early 1990s stopped construction of a skyscraper there and led to the protection of EKW.
“There is widespread construction of buildings financed by bank loans. Even electricity lines are being provided to these houses. How is all this possible in a Ramsar site? It’s been over 12 years since the wetland received the recognition but we have seen no management plan yet,” fish farmer Bablu Munda pointed out.
It was the British who had hit upon the idea of utilizing the city’s eastward gradient to channelize the sewage though the marshlands along the fringes for natural purification before it flowed into Kulti and Bidyadhari rivers and ultimately empties into the Bay of Bengal. To regulate the flow, lock gates were constructed at strategic points.
Though no policy was formulated on how much water had to flow into the fish and vegetable farms at EKW, it functioned smoothly till the 1980s as it was a win-win proposition. Thereafter, greed appears to have set in with a nexus comprising land sharks, musclemen, politicians and administration realizing that they could displace fishermen and farmers by regulating the sewage flow. Close to 1,00,000 people are engaged in the twin activities in EKW and reside there.
“The problem is occurring at two points. The first is in Topsia where two separate channels exist for storm water flow and dry weather flow. Logically, the storm water flow channel should be dry all-year round except in monsoon. But there is good flow of water even now, thereby indicating that water from the dry weather flow channel is being diverted there. The second problem point is at Bantala point off Basanti Highway where instead of allowing accumulation of 9ft water for proper flow of sewage water into EKW, the irrigation department is diverting water into Kulti Ganga river after just 7.5ft,” wetland expert Dhrubajyoti Ghosh said.
With untreated water flowing into Kulti, brackish and fresh water fish are getting affected in the Sunderbans, affecting the livelihood of more than 20,000 people there. “The fish that migrate upstream to breed and feed are getting suffocated due to lack of oxygen in the water. The problem has been there for over 10 years and has got accentuated recently. The damage being caused to Sunderbans is unintended with the real target being the EKW,” said Ajanta Dey of Nature Environment and Wildlife Society.