Bangladesh has to manage its water properly for ensuring a sustainable water regime, Water Resources Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud said yesterday.

Addressing the inauguration session of the National Water Convention 2016, he said 80 percent of the water that Bangladesh has flowed through the country in the four months of the rainy season, while the remaining 20 percent flowed in eight months.

“But we don't have a proper water distribution system,” he said.

Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), NGO Forum for Public Health, and Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad (BUP) jointly organised the two-day convention in the PKSF auditorium.

Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, chairman of PKSF, chaired the programme.

“When we get a huge amount of water, we don't preserve it. Our rivers, canals, haors, and bills should have held the water but we have filled them up and grabbed them to build houses,” said Anisul, delivering his speech as chief guest.

“If we want to ensure availability of water, we have to conserve water reservoirs like rivers, canals, haors, and bills.”

Anisul also said Bangladesh was a lower riparian country, so it was getting less water due to withdrawal of water by upper riparian countries, especially India.

Stressing the need for reducing pollution, he said while Bangladesh was getting less water, people were reducing the availability of that water through pollution.

Half of the pollution occurs due to a lack of awareness, he said.

Stressing the need of constructing a dam to use the water of the Ganges river, Anisul said there was a 30-year Ganges water sharing treaty with India but Bangladesh was not using properly the water it was getting.

He said it was possible to solve the problems like salinity, arsenic and protect the Sundarbans and biodiversity of south-eastern region through proper use of the Ganges water.

Bangladesh is not utilising Teesta Barrage fully, he said, adding that now 1.15 lakh hectares of land was getting irrigation facilities through the barrage, but the facility could be extended up to 4 lakh to 4.5 lakh hectares.

Anisul also suggested constructing sewerage treatment plants to save rivers and water bodies from pollution.

Among others, Managing Director of PKSF Md Abdul Karim, Executive Director of NGO Forum SMA Rashid, and Executive Director of BUP Nilufar Banu also spoke.