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With concerns growing about the harm the Tipaimukh dam will wreak on the ecology, agriculture and fisheries downstream, Bangladesh yesterday urged India to hold consultations with it and share all relevant information before it implemented the hydroelectric project.
The 1,500-MW project is located on the Barak river near India's Manipur-Mizoram border just off Bangladesh's Zakiganj border in Sylhet. The Barak enters Bangladesh as the rivers Surma and Kushiyara.
Concern heightened in Bangladesh after news broke that India's state-owned enterprise NHPC had signed a Promoter's Agreement on October 22 with the government of Manipur and Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd to set up a joint venture company for the implementation of the controversial project.
“The government of India should share all relevant details of the proposed project in full transparency and also about any further step that it may take in connection with the project,” said a statement by Bangladesh's foreign ministry yesterday.
“This will be critical in avoiding any gap in understanding or allaying concerns in Bangladesh,” said the statement, which was issued five days after the news broke.
“Bangladesh, as a co-riparian country, would like to underscore the need for prior consultations before there is any intervention on common rivers like the Barak,” it said.
In its response to the development, the opposition BNP yesterday announced a daylong hartal on December 1 in Sylhet, which it said would be hardest hit by the Indian move.
India defends the project by suggesting that it is a hydroelectric project with provision to control floods and there is no plan to divert water for irrigation.
Experts in Bangladesh say the massive embankment dam will disrupt the flow of the Barak river and adversely affect agriculture and fisheries downstream. They also note that the project sits on an earthquake region and will cause havoc in the event of a quake.
Rights groups in Manipur have also been vocal in their protest. Their concern is that the project will displace thousands of local people.
The Bangladesh foreign ministry statement said its attention had been drawn to recent press reports about the signing of a Promoters' Agreement concerning the proposed Tipaimukh Dam project, in the Indian State of Manipur, on the river Barak.
Dhaka has also noted that the Indian external affairs ministry in a statement yesterday said the proposed project was designed to be “a hydroelectric project with provision to control floods”. As such, this project would not involve any diversion of water for purposes of irrigation.
The Dhaka statement said Bangladesh further took note of the reiteration in the press briefing that “…during the visit of H. E. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh to India in January 2010, our Prime Minister had reiterated the assurance that India would not take steps on the Tipaimukh project that would adversely impact on Bangladesh. The assurance was again reiterated during the visit of our Prime Minister to Bangladesh in September 2011”.
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