A team of experts and officials from Bangladesh visited the Farakka Barrage on the Ganga on Monday and Tuesday to check the discharge of the river’s water to Bangladesh.
The team was headed by Mohammad Abul Hossen, a member of the Joint River Commission (JRC), that was set up by India and Bangladesh in 1972 to work on the sharing of waters of rivers that flow between the two countries.
Altogether, 54 rivers flow between India and Bangladesh.
“The team from Bangladesh visited the barrage. We had an amicable discussion on certain issues and shared certain information on the flow of the Ganga water,” said R.D. Deshpande, the general manager of the Farakka Barrage Project Authority.
The barrage is located over the Ganga, with Malda and Murshidabad districts on the left and right banks of the river. There is also a rail and road bridge along the barrage, from where water is discharged to Bangladesh.
The visit, political observers said, assumes significance as the Ganga Water Sharing Treaty (GWST) which was signed between India and Bangladesh in 1996 for 30 years, will expire next year.
“The hydro-diplomacy between India and Bangladesh is fast gaining ground as the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus is intensifying its demand for sharing waters of the Teesta river. The interim government recently conducted public hearings and made it clear that it was ready to take China’s help to set up a mega project on the Teesta. On the other hand, the GWST has to be renewed next year,” said an observer.
“In such a situation, the visit and the ensuing two-day meeting of the joint river commission (on March 6 and 7), are significant,” he added.
After the visit to Farakka, the Bangladeshi team will return to Calcutta on Wednesday where they will join the meeting of the JRC with the Indian counterparts.
“There are reports that the Bangladeshi delegation might also meet officials of the Bengal irrigation department,” said a source.
Last year, when the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina was in Delhi and held talks with her counterpart Narendra Modi on the Teesta water sharing issue, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her anguish for not involving Bengal in the talks.
“They are making decisions on the Teesta on their own, without involving us. If they go ahead and share the waters of Teesta, people in north Bengal will not get water to drink,” Mamata had said.
Additional reporting by Soumya De Sarkar in Malda