Gorai River: Can it flow round the year?

A front page picture in The Daily Star (October 21) showed the Gorai River at Kumarkhali Railway Bridge, with its bed covered by silt. It is an old story that has continued since the Farakka Barrage was opened in 1975. Due to diversion of about 40,000 cusec flow from the Ganga River towards the Hoogly River, the Ganga River flow towards Bangladesh drops suddenly in October, leading to silting up of the off-take of Gorai River. Many efforts were made through dredging to open this off-take, but resulted in failure. Now the question arises, can the Gorai River ever again flow round the year?    

On October 20, a group of environmental activists held a press conference in Dhaka to express concern about India's plan to construct 16 more barrages on the Ganga River. They feared that more diversion from the Ganga River would leave the southwest region of Bangladesh dry, affecting crops and the mangrove forest of the Sundarbans. They quoted opinions of several Indian activists, including one minister of Bihar, that constructing more barrages on the Ganga River would also affect the environment and people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The Ganga River originates from the Himalayas, and flows southeast through the plains of north India towards Bangladesh. Before crossing the border, it bifurcates at Jangipur; the minor right hand branch Bhagirathi River passes through India to the sea, and the left hand major branch crosses the border and flows about 250 km to meet the Jamuna2 River at Goalondo. Going 110 km to the southeast, it meets the Meghna River upstream of Chandpur. The Ganga River, with total length of 2,550 km., finally falls into the Bay of Bengal about 150 km downstream. During the nineteen fifties, sixties and seventies, India built several diversion barrages over the Ganga River and its tributaries for irrigation projects and navigation. These resulted in lesser accumulated flow in the Ganga River towards Bangladesh during the dry months.

The dispute between India and Bangladesh over sharing Ganga water started since commissioning of the Farakka Barrage in April 1975. The 2.245 km barrage, located about 18 km from the international border, started diverting around 40,000 cusecs of Ganga water to the Kolkata Port. A 37 km link canal connects the Ganga River from the upstream of the barrage to the off-take of Bhagirathi River at Jangipur. The usual flow of Ganga River inside Bangladesh before 1975 was recorded between 65,000 to 70,000 cusecs at Hardinge Bridge. After commissioning of the Barrage, and gradual increase of withdrawal further upstream of the Ganga River, flow inside Bangladesh reduced to about 10,000 cusec only.

The then prime ministers of Bangladesh and India, Sk. Mujibur Rahman and Mrs. Indira Gandhi, signed an interim agreement for sharing the Ganga waters at Farakka on April 18, 1975. This agreement provided minimum 44,000 cusec of water to be released from Farakka at the period of diversions. It expired on May 31, 1975. The second agreement, concluded by President Ziaur Rahman and Prime Minister Morarji Desai on November 5, 1977 for five years, guaranteed minimum 34,500 cusecs of water to Bangladesh. After its expiry, two Memorandums of Understanding were concluded in 1982 and 1985, but those expired in 1988. There was no sharing agreement of the Ganga water between India and Bangladesh from 1989 to 1996. On December 12, 1996, the third water sharing agreement was signed by Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and H.D. Deve Gowda for 30 years. This agreement allotted minimum 27,633 cusecs of water, but without guarantee.

Due to increasing withdrawal of the Ganga River in its upstream inside India, its distributaries inside Bangladesh are slowly facing death for not receiving their winter flow. The Ichhamoti is dead, the Baral and the Chandana are dying, the Mathabhanga rarely gets flow during flood months, and the Gorai also gets dried up at its off-take during winter. As the Gorai is the main lifeline of southwestern Bangladesh, dredging efforts are taken to de-silt its off-take to keep the flow coming from the Ganga River. These attempts fail because the river gets silted again by the next year. Any dredging operation in a river cannot be sustainable if the river carries silt.

It was thought that a barrage over the Ganga River inside Bangladesh could divert water towards the Gorai River to keep it flowing round the year. Tippetts Abbett McCarthy Stratton (TAMS), a consultancy firm from New York, USA, proposed building the Ganga Barrage in 1963 at a location 3 km downstream of the Gorai River off-take. The barrage could not be built at that time due to political tensions between India and Pakistan. After independence, the proposed Ganga Barrage site was changed in 1981 to a location 4 km downstream of the Pakshey Railway (Hardinge) Bridge, with the possibility of reducing the river training cost. But later, considering possible backwater affects up to the Indian territory, the site was again shifted in 1986 to a far downstream point near Habashpur, Rajbari. From this place the barrage will not be able to divert water towards the Gorai River.

In 2001, a study on the Ganga Dependant Area selected a fourth location for the barrage, near Thakurbari of Kushtia. There can be a fifth site very close to the off-take of Gorai River. In the eighties, Bangladesh constructed the Teesta Barrage to irrigate a large part of the northern region. With the experience of Teesta Barrage, Bangladesh can construct the Ganga Barrage with its own manpower, skill and technology. If the barrage is constructed upstream of Thakurbari, it will be possible to give gravity supply to the G.K. and Pabna Irrigation Projects, to irrigate  greater Kushtia, Jessore, Faridpur and Pabna areas, and will be able to divert sufficient quantity of sweet water to the Gorai River round the year.  

The writer is Chairman, Institute of Water & Environment.
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