New water research project proposed while 4 existing bodies yield little

The Planning Commission has expressed its reservations over the need to establish a new International Water Resource Management and Research Institute as four agencies including the River Research Institute (RRI) already exist under the water resource ministry.

Terming the Tk737 crore worth project proposal, floated by the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), as unreasonable, the commission said it will sit with all government bodies linked with water resource research, in the project evaluation committee meeting on 13 February.

The commission will then decide on the rationality of the project based on feedback from the agencies including the Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), the Water Resources Planning Organisation (Warpo) and the Bangladeshi Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), said officials.  

If the three Dhaka-based agencies – IWM, Warpo and CEGIS – do not produce expected results, it is possible to transform the RRI in Faridpur into a world class water resource management and research institute, the commission stated in a report on the proposed project.

BWDB officials say nearly 80% of the project of the government's Delta Plan-2100 will be implemented through the BWDB and therefore the board needs its own water resource research institute in Dhaka other than skilled manpower.

The board, in its project proposal, states that the primary goal is to develop the country's water resources management. 

The proposed institute at Dhaka's Khilkhet area will be the largest hydrological institute and serve as a platform for sophisticated training and research on hydrology, hydrogeology, irrigation system, land recovery and land development. It will also be the place to study topics including dam, vegetation, biodiversity and aquaculture. 

Fazlur Rashid, director general of the BWDB, told The Business Standard that the project proposal comes with an emphasis on research as well as international standard training.

"It will offer training for capacity building and skill development. Local and foreign experts will conduct the training," he said.

He pointed out that the institute is planned on a 33-acre land, owned by the water development board, and therefore there will be zero spending on land acquisition.

"A permanent 30-km long channel with artificial wave generating mechanism will be constructed and it will allow the tracking of river flow trends," added Rashid.

Ahsan H Masur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, thinks elevating any existing agency to global standard will be a reasonable move other than setting up yet another one for research on water resources.

"The focus should be on creating international standard researchers and we need to bring in experts from abroad to provide adequate training," he said. 

Water resource expert Ainun Nishat expressed a similar stance and said, "There are no training institutes for water development board officials."

Commenting on the latest project, she said, "It is unclear to me what the water development board means by an "international institute". Authorities should develop necessary training facilities within the existing infrastructure of the water development board.

Dr Anika Yunus of Buet's Department of Water Resource Engineering said the Dhaka-based government agencies should be developed further with a focus to create more researchers.

Prof Dr Mohammad Shahjahan Mondol, Institute of Water and flood Management, Buet said, "Although IWM and CEGIS are government agencies, they take part in tenders and work in advisory roles like private agencies. Therefore, these two agencies cannot be transformed into an international standard research institute. Then, people are reluctant to go to Faridpur's RRI because of the distance from the capital."

According to Prof Mondol, setting up an international research institute with the WARPO on board can be a viable option.

Explaining the commission's reservations over the project, the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) officials said, the main task of both the proposed institute and the existing RRI are the same.

Besides the IMED think, it is entirely unreasonable to build a river research institute in the highly populated Dhaka.

In a report on a recent visit at the RRI, the IMED states, equipment valued in crores have been largely unused in the last year.

The capacity of the institute, which conducts sustainable planning, design, and study of physical models of water resources development projects across the country, is not being properly used for research, the report pointed out.

Aimed at modernising the RRI, the government purchased Tk53 crore worth of equipment from January 2018 to June 2021. 

Of the imported machinery, the Hydraulic Rotary Drilling Rig, which is used for soil excavation and geotechnical purposes, was not used in the last year. The same is also the case for Real-time kinematic GPS, used to conduct river bank surveys and wave generators including a 3D one, which is useful for the construction of sustainable dams on the banks of rivers or seas.

The Particle Size Analyser, which is capable of analysing soil particles from 10 mm to 3000 uM, has not been needed so far.

The water development board is yet to use the Triaxial Apparatus, another imported item, which is used to analyse possible river erosion, despite the scope for its use.

The IMED reports list a few other equipment that are kept idle at the RRI.