Six Common Rivers: Dhaka, Delhi to share data
After 34 years, the Joint Rivers Commission of Bangladesh and India will tomorrow update data on six common rivers and discuss a framework on sharing the waters of those.
The six common rivers include the Muhuri, Monu, Dharla, Khowai, Gumti and Dudhkumar.
The two-day meeting of Joint Rivers Commission (JRC) is scheduled to be held in Delhi. The JRC delegation from Bangladesh, however, was still waiting for government order for this till filing of this report.
Earlier, water sharing agreements of two rivers -- the Teesta and Feni -- were finalised in 2011, but no agreement was signed.
“Not only the Teesta, we are also going to discuss treaties for sharing water of six other rivers. Our delegation will exchange updated data of those six joint rivers in the upcoming JRC meeting,” said Kabir Bin Anwar, secretary for the Water Resources ministry. Every year in March, the Muhuri river in Parshuram, Feni becomes bone dry as the water flow goes down to only 75 cusecs (cubic feet per second), while in May the flow of Monu river in Sylhet goes down to 205 cusecs due to withdrawal of water from the upstream in India. This is ten times lower than what the rivers usually have.
Like these two rivers, Bangladesh and India have 54 common rivers. So far, however, the two countries have only one relevant treaty signed in 1996 which oversees the sharing of water of the Ganges river.
Dhaka and New Delhi first exchanged river flow data of these six rivers in 1985. Since then, the two countries have discussed the issue of sharing water from the six rivers mentioned, but they could not reach any consensus.
After 34 years, the technical committees of two countries are going to update data again and exchange the flow chart data till 2018.
According to the latest flow chart, the water flow of the Khowai river goes down to 378 cusecs in March, the Gumti river to 507 cusecs, Dharla to 2,253 cusecs and Dudhkumar to 2,591 cusecs, all due to withdrawal of water from the upstream. During the monsoon season, the water level increases much higher.
KM Anwar Hossain, a JRC member, who will be leading the nine-member delegation to India, said the two-day meeting was scheduled to take place from Wednesday, if it was not delayed.
He said the agreement of Teesta and Feni were finalised in 2011, so they would concentrate on finalising the agreements for the six rivers.
JRC sources also said Bangladesh got 68,000 cusecs less water in the first two months of the lean period of January and February this year than what it should have gotten as per the Ganges Water Treaty 1996.
“Though we got excess water in the last two months of the lean period in April and May, still we would discuss the issue as we need the water during the leanest period,” he said.
Bangladesh and India share a total 54 transboundary rivers. The JRC was formed to resolve conflicts about sharing of waters of those trans-boundary rivers.
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