Around 300 people have lost their homesteads and livelihoods due to the continuous erosion of the Padma river in Daulatdia and Debagram Union of Goalanda upazila of Rajbari.
They are now forced to live under the open sky, a sorry life with the family members. Most of them, who lived on cultivating their own or leased land as working as a labor on someone else’s lands, have no work
Some of them, however, are trying to manage a living by peddling street foods or food items to the passengers of the buses waiting in Daulatdia Ferry Terminal, already overcrowded with hawkers.
A hawker Salam Sheikh in the terminal, who is affected by the river erosion, said, “A few days ago I had a house. Now I have nothing. So, I am selling fried onion on the ferries to earn a living today,”
Daulatdia Union Parishad Chairman Abdur Rahman Mandal told Barta24, "Already Sheikh Para, Dhallapara, Hatem Mandal Para and Lalu Mandal Para have gone into the river. About 300 men of these villages have become unemployed.”
He called the government to come up with easy installment loans to help them.