Indo-Bangla Water Sharing: Secys start talks in Delhi today

Bangladesh and India hold the water-secretary level meeting in Delhi  today ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Bangladesh  on March 26-27.

Water Resources Ministry Secretary Kabir Bin  Anwar and his Indian counterpart Pankaj Kumar will lead their respective  sides in the meeting.

"Our water secretary is already in Delhi ... . Water-sharing issues of six rivers  and other things will be discussed," Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen  told reporters at an event at the Foreign Service Academy yesterday.

Dhaka  and Delhi began water-sharing talks on six rivers -- the Manu,  Muhuri, Khowai, Gumti, Dharla and Dudhkumar -- in August 2019 after the  two countries failed to sign the Teesta water-sharing deal due to West  Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's last-minute opposition in 2011.

This  has been an issue of friction in the bilateral relations, but India says the state government approval is a  precondition, as per the country's constitution, for such deals on  common rivers.

"Teesta [deal] was final. Those who were  present in the meeting told us in each page, initials were there. We  know why it has not been signed then. India repeatedly said they stand  by the deal. We raise the issue in all the meetings between the two  countries," Momen said.

Not only the Teesta, he said, the two  governments are working on water-sharing of six other rivers. The two  countries have 54 rivers in common, but the treaties on water-sharing  were inked only on two rivers -- the Ganges in 1996 and the Feni in  2019.

Following the water-secretary level meeting of the two  countries in 2019, technical committees held a meeting in January this  year and also shared data on water flows.

The two sides also spoke  of collecting data on the amount of water used by the two countries  from each of the rivers, Malik Fida A Khan, a member of the committee  and executive director at the Centre for Environmental and Geographic  Information Services (CEGIS), had told this correspondent.

Malik  Fida said once the data on water usage by the two countries is shared,  they can develop a water-sharing framework agreement.

A member of  the Bangladesh delegation told this  correspondent that Bangladesh wants basin-wide river management, which  requires sharing of data on environmental flow of the rivers, joint  studies, dredging etc.

The official said Bangladesh wants  withdrawal of 153 cusec water from the Rahimpur canal for an irrigation  project. Bangladesh also wants a joint study on the optimum use of the  Ganges water.

"We will discuss these issues in the meeting," he added.

Our  New Delhi correspondent adds: the water secretary-level meeting in New  Delhi is expected to discuss the issue of withdrawing water from the  Feni river for Sabroom town in Tripura for which an MoU was signed with  Bangladesh during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit in October 2019,  official sources said.

The MoU allows India to withdraw 1.82 cubic feet per second (cusec) of water (equal to 51.4 litres per second) from the river.

The  sources said talks are also expected on a possible Memorandum of  Understanding (MoU) for drawing water from the Surma river.

Another issue to be discussed is flood forecast.