Dhaka should seek info on Teesta flow [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Dhaka should seek info on Teesta flow

Local April 10, 2017

Experts and green activists in Dhaka said on Sunday that the government should immediately seek information to know why there was no flow in the Teesta River as West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed.
At a meeting between Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and Mamata Banerjee at Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi on Saturday, Mamata placed a proposal for sharing waters of four other common rivers instead of Teesta claiming that there was no water in the river, Indian media reported.
The experts and green activists said that Bangladesh being a lower riparian country had every right to get information about how and when the upper riparian India was diverting water from the common rivers as per the Water Convention of the United Nations.
‘For proper negotiations, Bangladesh should get detailed data of Teesta water from India and try to know from which points and when they divert water,’ Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology water resources engineering professor Umme Kulsum Navera said.
She said that detailed study was necessary for basin-wise management of the common rivers and Bangladesh should press for it. For proper sharing, it is necessary to get information about how much water the river discharges in total, she said.
Following the meeting with Hasina in New Delhi, Mamata told journalists that she had informed the Bangladesh prime minister ‘the real situation’ in Teesta.
Mamata was quoted to have proposed in the meeting, ‘there are several rivers in the northern region. These are Torsa, Jaldhaka, Kaljani, Raidak and Sankosh. There are waters in these rivers. Bangladesh can use the water of these rivers as an alternative to the Teesta.’
Earlier on the day, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, speaking in Mamata’s presence, told Hasina, ‘I firmly believe that it is only my government and Your Excellency, Sheikh Hasina, your government, that can and will find an early solution to Teesta water sharing.’
Former Joint Rivers Commission member Ainun Nishat said that what the two prime ministers said, in the joint statement, about the Teesta water sharing and two other rivers Dharla and Dudhkumar was more important. Discussions have been going on with India for sharing Teesta water and these two rivers for last 30 years, he mentioned.
Terming Mamata’s comment ridiculous, former water resources minister Hafiz Uddin Ahmed said that the rivers named were rather canals which went dry in lean season.
Hafiz, also Bangladesh Nationalist Party vice-chairman, said that Bangladesh should immediately take up the matter with the United Nations to ensure equitable share of Teesta water, crucial for Bangladesh’s northern districts.
National River Saving Movement coordinator MA Matin also called for immediate steps to stop diversion of waters from the common river upstream in India so that lower riparian Bangladesh could get due share.
He said that Mamata’s proposal was farcical and unacceptable.
The green activist said that Bangladesh should raise the matter in the international forum as its ecology and livelihoods of the people were largely dependent on rivers.
Economist Anu Muhammad, also a green activist, said all structures constructed by India to divert waters upstream the trans-boundary rivers should be removed for ensuring Bangladesh’s due share.
The Teesta flow usually drops drastically in the lean season and it has continued to fall since January due to unilateral withdrawal of water upstream in India in the absence of any deal on water sharing of the common river between the two neighbours.
The drastic fall in the river flow is playing havoc with lives and livelihoods in Bangladesh’s northern districts, according to local people and experts.
Bangladesh has long been pushing for signing the proposed Teesta water sharing deal so that its rightful share of water is guaranteed for ‘the Teesta Barrage project, biodiversity in the area and also for the existence of the river itself.’
The signing of much-awaited Teesta water sharing deal was dropped at the eleventh hour during former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka in 2011, apparently following Mamata’s objection.
Although the two neighbours share 54 trans-boundary rivers, the countries have an agreement only on Ganges water sharing.