Over 1,000 fishermen and nature activists from four blocks of Basirhat took out a 12km march on Sunday to protest the alleged administrative apathy to begin the long-awaited cleansing of the polluted Bidyadhari river.

The protesters said the National Green Tribunal had last year ordered the cleansing of the Bidyadhari, along with 351 other polluted rivers. Despite the approval of a grant by the Centre, the work is yet to begin.

Fishermen from Sandeshkhali, Hansnabad, Minakha and Haroa blocks gathered at Malancha on the Basanti Highway under the banners of the Bidyadhari Nadi Bachao Committee and the Dakshingan Matsyajibi Forum to start the march, which concluded at the Kulti crossing near Haroa.

The fishermen said it had become a serious livelihood issue for them as the alleged pollution caused by the Bantala leather complex had been depleting several kinds of fish from the river.

“Around 10,000 families in the four blocks are solely dependent on fishing. But because of the pollution in this long stretch, several species of fish have disappeared,” said a fisherman from Haroa who joined the protest march.

An approximate 40km stretch of the Bidyadhari, from Haroa to Sandeshkhali, is polluted largely because of the alleged draining of industrial waste from the leather complex.

“The leather complex authorities never realised

they had been draining the poison into the river, not only endangering the riverine life forms but also robbing these people of their livelihood,” said Gopesh Patra, a Trinamul Congress leader who is also the convener of the committee.

Last year, the National Green Tribunal directed state governments to ensure cent per cent treatment of sewage before release into river streams. The tribunal also directed the state government to begin installation of such treatment plants for sewerage and connecting drains by March 31, 2020

“After the order of the tribunal, the Centre had sanctioned Rs 4.5 crore for the work on a 20km stretch of the Bidyadhari. The state government was supposed to carry out the work, which is yet to begin,” said Patra.

“We came to know that the state public health engineering department would do the work,” he added.

A public health engineering department official in Calcutta said the detailed project report for the work has been finalised and sent for vetting. “We are hopeful of being able to begin the work soon.”

A spokesperson for the Calcutta Leather Complex Tanners’ Association dismissed the allegations as “baseless”. “We have been adhering to the standard operating procedure from the state government and the state pollution control board. Had we not done so, they would have shut us down by now,” he said.

Rakhal Halder, a fisherman from Haroa, said: “We want the state government to take care of the issue and ensure the work begins at the earliest, to save the river, to help us overcome the livelihood crisis.”