The government’s announcement that the thorny Teesta river water sharing issue will not be part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda when he visits Dhaka on June 6 will come as a huge disappointment for Bangladesh. After Parliament ratified the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement, which paved the way for the historic exchange of enclaves and territories in adverse possession between India and Bangladesh, Dhaka was upbeat that a pact on Teesta river water sharing would be inked during Modi’s two-day visit. But an invisible dam seems to have come up, stalling, for the second time in four years, a deal on a 50-50 sharing of the waters of Teesta that originates in Sikkim and runs through north Bengal before flowing into the Yamuna in Bangladesh.
In 2011, when the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was all set to sign the Teesta agreement with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, into her second year in government, threw a spanner in the UPA’s works.
By a sleight of hand, she scuppered the deal-to-be getting two surveys conducted on the the volume of water in the Teesta.
The state Irrigation and Waterways Department’s independent survey threw up surprising data that contradicted Mamata’s claim that the Teesta’s upper stream in North Bengal did not have much water. The conclusions of the survey, called the Teesta Cubature Study, said that the volume of water in the Teesta Barrage reservoir had increased from 4.3 million cubic metres (in 2007) to 5.5 million cubic metres in 2012. Not much has changed between 2012 and now.
After sabotaging the New Delhi-Dhaka deal, Mamata directed a team of experts headed by a Geography professor, Kalyan Rudra, in November 2011 to conduct a second survey of the Teesta. At that time, Mamata had claimed that the “water problem” faced by Bengal – and by extension Bangladesh – was the result of expansion of the Teesta Barrage and operationalisation of some thermal plants along the course of the river. While the experts’ panel headed by Rudra concluded that the volume of water in the Teesta “was not in excess of human demand”, and there was indeed a paucity of water in Teesta, high levels of erosion had led to over 20% increase in the capacity of the barrage in Gajoldoba in the Dooars.
And yet Mamata backed the Rudra-headed panel’s results.
A good spell of rains could lead to an overflow and the barrage’s design would allow for discharge of 700,000 cu secs of waters. Additionally, barring three months during winters, the volume of water in the reservoir remains high. But Mamata, who stubbornly refused to agree with the quantum of water that India could share with Bangladesh, continued to claim that the Teesta’s flow was not good enough to even take care of local demand in North Bengal.
If her recent bonhomie with Modi was the result of an understanding that the Teesta issue would not be brought up during his Dhaka trip, it is bad news not just for Bangladesh but also India. The LBA has certainly helped cement India-Bangladesh ties.
Bangladesh has responded positively to Indian security concerns and cracked down on Indian insurgent groups who had made that country a haven. Besides, cooperation between two neighbours rests on the principle of mutual concession and compromise. Reneging on proposed agreements leads to not only embarrassment but also loss of faith.
There is no doubt that Bangladesh needs water as much as India needs access to that country’s territory to build infrastructure in its north-east, especially in Tripura. Failure to adhere to agreements may prove costly for New Delhi, especially when a chief minister is allowed to get away with veto power.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)