Bangla liquor blackens river

ranaghat, (nadia): a liquor factory in bangladesh has made life miserable for residents of ranaghat. waste from across the border, regularly dumped into the churni, has turned the waters black and the once free-flowing river is now a dirty and almost clogged canal. the hardest hit has been the local fishermen who say that fishes have stopped breeding in the dirty, foul smelling water. many have been forced to shift to other means of livelihood. fish is hardly available these days. how can we survive without fish? many among us have already given up our profession and others are following suit, said jibon saha, a local fisherman. the municipal authorities, worried as they are, can do little except express anger. pollution is maximum in the month of january when sugarcane yield is maximum. waste is dumped directly into the river, said chairman of the ranaghat municipality, partha pratim chatterjee. come in the month of january and see for yourself how black the water is, he said. locals say that between january and june every year, the river cannot be used in any way, even the children shun the black, murky waters. monsoon flooding can also wreck havoc. during last year's devastating floods, almost every house in the town was knee-deep in water. last year, the whole town was submerged and our homes were under dirty, stinking water, the chairman complained. what annoys the municipal authorities most is the state government's indifference. civic officials sent samples of contaminated water all the way to kolkata and new delhi, but no action has been taken. i have supplied samples of contaminated water to the government and the pollution control board officials. i also sent them to delhi. but they seem to ignore our problems, chatterjee said. pollution control board officials, on their turn, plead helplessness. they claim that they can do little about the problem. the factory is in bangladesh. we cannot take action against a polluting unit if it is situated in a foreign country, said a pcb official. according to him, the factory does not have an affluent treatment plant and the river carries the waste to ranaghat. only the joint river commission and the government of india can take up the matter with the authorities in bangladesh. but this can happen only if the state government sends a report to the centre asking for action. this, sadly, has not happened yet, the official said.