The operations of the Ministry for Water Resources are quite complex, said State Minister for Water Resources Zaheed Farooque.
“The workings of this ministry is very slow. You cannot get something done immediately even if you want to,” he said during an exclusive interview with Bangla Tribune on Monday (Jan 28).
He said that unlike the other ministries his own can’t just call in tenders and get to work immediately.
“Take river erosion for example. We can’t just pour in Tk 50-100 million into the projects,” he said adding that preventing this was an expensive and lengthy procedure.
Describing the process, the state-minister said, “The government has to take a few decisions and then the engineers have to go inspect the site to see what kind of river erosion is taking place.
“The solution isn’t immediate either. They have to inspect what sort of solution they have to come up with it.”
He said that river erosion is different for each river and they need specialized solutions which are time-consuming in itself.
“I have sent the engineers to different locations since I took charge of the ministry,” Farooque said, adding that he has asked them submit a report on places where erosion might take place coming monsoon.
He said that once erosion starts and water starts pouring in, the whole process becomes more time consuming. “We can prevent erosion if we can take steps beforehand.”
Farooque said that victims of river erosion go bankrupt overnight and if any case of an engineer neglecting their duties comes up, it will be looked into.