Cooperation in water management

It is heartening to note that Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan are going to form two sub-regional alliances for cooperation in generating and sharing hydropower from their trans-boundary river waters. Spurred on by joint effort of Bangladesh and India, the idea instantly caught on with Nepal and Bhutan which have joined in. All these countries are geographically intertwined as parts of common river basins and therefore hold enormous potential for cooperation producing electricity and sharing it.
India and Bangladesh are common in both sub-regional alliances with Nepal and Bhutan being the third country in either of the two alliances. The prospective new equations among the participating countries will add a new and much-awaited dimension to regional cooperation in water management. The Ganges and Brahmaputra basins together makes for a huge untapped potential not merely in power generation and connecting it to national grids like in Europe it also holds the key to flood control. Equally important is the prospect for augmentation of lean season water flows in the lower reaches of the river systems.
Sometimes bilateral approach, let alone any unilateral move to interfere with the natural flows can bear perilous results for the countries at the receiving end. That a departure from such self-serving approaches is being made is a positive development. With this happening, regional cooperation in resource management will receive an efficacious impetus. The benign effect on environment to be derived is critical for another reason which tackling climate change that have begun to impact the whole region.
Bangladesh's selection of 20 hydropower project sites -- nine in India, seven in Nepal and four in Bhutan along the Ganges and the Brahmaputra river basins augurs well. The idea is to add electricity from such sources to our national grid. Of course the proposed project sites will be finalised through intensive discussion. Here our negotiating capabilities and a spirit of give-and-take can make a huge difference to the collective and individual outcomes for the countries forming the alliances.
With such projects in the horizon, there will be dearth of international financing, that is for sure.