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PM asks all to resist water withdrawal by India

The Daily Star
Staff Correspondent
Thu. March 25, 2004


Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday blamed dry-season withdrawal of river water by India for drought, increased salinity and ecological imbalance in Bangladesh and urged all, irrespective of party affiliations, to resist it.

The prime minister was responding to a volley of queries during her weekly question-time in the House.

Khaleda said not only her party BNP but all together should act to save the country and its ecology as India was withdrawing water during the dry season buildings dams on the upper catchments of many common rivers.

She mentioned Bangladesh's efforts to resolve the bilateral conflict on water issue by taking it up to international level as well as discussing at diplomatic and JRC (Indo-Bangla Joint Rivers Commission) levels.

Khaleda said the transboundary rivers, of which China, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh are co-riparians, flow down to the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh depositing an astounding amount of 1.8 billion tonnes of sediments each year, gradually choking the navigability of its rivers.

The prime minister said her government had plan for dredging the rivers, but such ventures were very cost-intensive. She informed the House that the shipping ministry was implementing a Tk 36-crore dredging project to enhance the navigability in the Sadarghat to Ashulia Bridge stretch of Buriganga.

To keep Buriganga, a lifeline for Dhaka, navigable round the year, Water Development Board is also taking steps for channelling water from Brahmaputra to Buriganga through Dhaleswari, Khaleda informed.

After one of her party lawmakers had accused former Awami League (AL) lawmaker Haji Selim of illegally grabbing 'half of the river Buriganga,' the prime minister said, not only Buriganga, her government would free all the rivers in the country from illegal encroachment.

Khaleda also told the House that her government was discussing with India to update the Ganges River Water Sharing Contract signed during the previous government of AL.

Replying to a query on expansion of electricity supply in rural areas, she said that her colleagues in parliament, who were deprived by the previous government of getting enough power connections in their constituencies, would be compensated now.

Claiming that her government so far has taken electricity to 6,896 villages, the prime minister expressed the hope that 6,800 more villages would get power connection during her current tenure.

To a query on recruitment in public services, Khaleda replied that so far her government had appointed 87,597 persons in government jobs and hoped to appoint 135,000 more before her term exhausted.

In response to another question, she said Bangladesh was trying to get some trade facilities from Thailand, India and Pakistan on bilateral basis and hoped for some to be gained from China and South Korea under regional trade system.

The prime minister said Bangladesh recently proposed for reserving 20 percent market shares in European Union for garments and 30 percent for low-tech commodities from the least developed countries (LDCs).

Responding to two other questions, Khaleda Zia gave resumes of some of the programmes undertaken for natural calamity preparedness and women emancipation.

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