State Minister for Water Resources Zaheed Farooque on Sunday said that the Delta Plan-2100 is the key to Bangladesh's development in future. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has approved the country's first hundred-year master plan 'Bangladesh Delta Plan-2100' to build a liveable 'Sonar Bangla' as dreamt by the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibor Rahman.
In 2018, the government launched the Delta Plan 2100 to secure the future use of the country's water resources and mitigate the impact of climate change and natural calamities. As Bangladesh is vulnerable to these challenges as well as climate change impacts, sustainable developments require the caliber to cope with climatic variables. Such challenges indeed require the proper implementation of the government’s visionary Delta Plan 2100.
Delta Plan will enable the
country to deal with the
adverse impact of climate
change in a more efficient
and strategic way
It is apprehended that Delta Plan will enable the country to deal with the adverse impact of climate change in a more efficient and strategic way. Most importantly, the scheme will help the country reclaim a big mass of land from the Bay of Bengal. Hence, it can be hoped that the proper implementation of the project will be the key to tackle climate change challenges.
Experts are of the opinion that physical infrastructure needs to be built and the capacity and efficiency of the workforce should be enhanced to implement the Delta Plan the government has taken for economic growth and climate resilience. After implementing its own delta management plan, Netherlands, reclaimed 6,000 square kilometres of land and the country is now assisting Bangladesh in executing the plan. However, following Netherlands, Bangladesh should also try to reclaim a big mass of land from the Bay of Bengal through implementing Delta Plan 2100. Every year rivers from Himalayas bring tonnes of sediments while crossing Bangladesh, which earlier gave birth to some 1,000 square kilometres of land. Experts assert that through this process in the next 50 years Bangladesh can reclaim at least 1,000 square kilometres naturally.
However, it is said that with the use of new technology, Bangladesh could speed up the accretion process as Netherlands did. In this regard, building more dams using advanced technology is very much needed which would enable Bangladesh to reclaim 4,000 to 5,000 square kilometres in the near future.
