Bart Schultz
The collection of photographs and slides taken by Prof. Adriaan Volker, which is managed by Batavialand, contains 44 images of the Bagjola Ghui I Jatragachi Drainage Scheme. They caught my attention because I couldn't really determine whether it was indeed a polder area. A bit of searching on Google Earth and other websites provided some clarity. I found virtually no information about the Bagjola Ghui I Jatragachi Drainage Scheme, but I did find information about the Indian State of West Bengal, where this system is located, and about the 38 kilometres long Bagjola Canal. Based on this information, it's easy to conclude that it must be a large polder area.
The main river flowing through West Bengal is the Ganges, which splits here into two branches, the Padma and the Hooghly. The Padma flows into Bangladesh and, via several branches, discharges into the Bay of Bengal. The other branch flows, as the Bhagirathi river and the Hooghly river, through West Bengal and discharges in India also into the Bay of Bengal.
The Farakka Dam is located on the Ganges River, approximately 18 kilometres upstream of the border with Bangladesh. Built between 1962 and 1970, the dam is approximately 2,300 metres long. On the right bank of the Ganges, just before the dam, there is a large intake that diverts water into the Farakka Feeder Canal. This canal, over 38 kilometres long, ultimately flows into the Hooghly River, providing additional water to this branch of the river for drinking water and irrigation during the dry season. For years, the management of the Farakka Dam was a source of disputes over water sharing between India and Bangladesh, which ultimately led to an Agreement in 1996.
A major city on the western edge of the region is Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, on the Hooghly River. Much of the city was originally a vast marshland, that has been reclaimed over the centuries and increasingly urbanized. Today, Kolkata has a population of approximately 4.5 million, and the surrounding region around 14.5 million.
Several Indian newspapers report that, after the 2021 floods, dredging of several canals in and around Kolkata began in early May 2022, allowing excess water to be discharged. The Bagjola Canal is one of these canals. The canals appear to have been significantly silted up and polluted. Furthermore, the canals were now home to a considerable number of illegal buildings. This is not unusual in urban areas in the deltas of several Asian countries, where the poor people often have no other option than to build their huts on the riverbank. All of this, of course, compromises the river's discharge function. Pollution from all kinds of waste dumped into the Ganges River is also reported to be a major problem.
The area where the Bagjola Ghui I Jatragachi Drainage Scheme is located must therefore be a large and now quite densely populated delta, which must contain several polders. Unfortunately, I haven't yet figured out exactly what this system entails. Does it refer only to the Bagnola Canal, or does it also involve the construction of several polders? I'll investigate this further.
