Nabaganga River

Nabaganga River is a distributary, one of the offshoots of the Mathabhanga river. 'The new form of the Ganges from the Mathabhanga' may be the background of the naming of the river. The river originates near the Chuadanga town. Flowing eastward the river receives the kumar at Magura and the chitra at Narail. Then it flows southward to meet the bhairab river. In the past, the Nabaganga was a distributary of the ichamati, but later its head was silted up and the river became a tributary of the Bhairab. The course of the Nabaganga was choked up into a beel after flowing a short route towards east from its origin. In 1930 the head of the river was dredged but it brought no satisfactory result. This place is known as Gaznavi Ghat. The river meets the Kumar after crossing the Chuadanga and Jhenaidaha districts and gets new life receiving the water flow from the Kumar. In fact, the Nabaganga after Magura is the extension of the Kumar river.

Nowadays it has been observed that the Nabaganga carries a major flow of the gorai-madhumatiMadhumati River river at Baradia. The Nabaganga is a meandering river but it shows no erosion tendency. The river is navigable and is under tidal influence, but the course from Chuadanga to Magura is navigable only in rainy season. The total length of the river is 230 km and the average width up to Magura is 200m and later part is 300m.

The water of the river is used for irrigation through pumps at various places from Chuadanga to Gazirhat. A flood protection embankment has been constructed on the right side of the river from Kalachandpur to Gazirhat. Chuadanga, Jhenaidaha, Magura, Binodpur, Naohata, Baradia, Gazirhat are some of the important places on the banks of the Nabaganga. [Tahmina Ahmed]

See map in ganges-padma river system.