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Inter Basin Water Transfer Link Project of India |
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News From
Bangladesh News Paper Delhi to
consult Dhaka if river New Age
The Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Veena Sikri, on Monday said New Delhi would consult with all other four riparian countries if its river-linking project involved any international river. ‘The project is entirely at its conceptual stage and the first focus is on its southern and peninsular rivers,’ she told reporters after attending a roundtable on ‘Strategic Significance of Water Resources in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basins’, organised by the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies at its auditorium in Dhaka. Sikri said the Indian government had formed a committee of experts to look into this huge project and submit a report, according to the United News of Bangladesh. She said the Indian government had already given assurance to all four other riparian countries that should any of the rivers involved be international rivers ‘we will consult with them fully’. ‘So, there is no need of unnecessary misunderstanding… Let’s have positive and rational approach.’ Disagreeing with the complaint of less water flow of Ganges for Bangladesh, she said Bangladesh is ‘getting the same or more water than indicated in the treaty’. In support of her claim, Sikri referred to the report of the joint monitoring committee that monitors the Ganges flow at Farakka and the Hardinge Bridge point. The speakers at the roundtable stressed on the need of regional discussions, in resolving the problem of sharing water of the international rivers, according to BDNEWS, another private news agency. Chaired by its chairman, Mufleh R Osmani, the roundtable was also attended by the water resources minister, Hafiz Uddin Ahmed. The Bangladesh representative of IUCN, Ainun Nishat presented a paper on ‘Water sharing between Bangladesh and India’, while professor of the Asia Pacific Centre for Security of the US, Robert G Wirsing presented a paper on ‘Bangladesh-India Water Diplomacy: American Perspective’ and former ambassador Afsarul Kader presented another paper on ‘River Linking Project’. Hafiz blamed India for its lack of initiative to hold the meetings of the Bangladesh-India Joint River Commission as per the decisions. He hoped India would take the initiative to hold the meeting of joint river commission, taking human and environmental aspects into consideration, and added that Bangladesh was eager to hold both bilateral and regional meeting with Nepal, Bhutan, China and other countries through which the common rivers flow. Nishat said there was a gap between political and technical initiatives to resolve water problem. Sometimes technical initiative could not move ahead due to lack of political initiative, he added. Sikri said though the river linking project was still at its conceptual stage, unexpected uproar was going on in Bangladesh. The project had been taken up for the people of the southern part of India and Bangladesh would not be affected, she added. She further commented that water was not Bangladesh’s problem, but the problem remained with its mismanagement as water crisis emerges out of rivers drying up due to silts, lack of dredging and incapacity of retaining water during monsoon. However, she opined that the problem of water sharing could be resolved through bilateral discussions and not regional meeting.
Source: New Age.
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