Ganga Waters Treaty
Ganga Waters Treaty
The sharing of the Ganga's water has been a long standing dispute between India and Bangladesh over the appropriate allocation and utilization of the resources of the Ganga river that flows from north India into Bangladesh. The issues was disputed for 35 years before a treaty was finally signed to establish parameters for water allocation. In 1975, India constructed a dam on the Ganges River 11 miles (18 km) from the Bangladeshi border. Bangladesh alleges that the dam diverts much needed water from Bangladesh and adds a man-made disaster to the country already plagued by natural disasters. The damn also has severe ecological consequences. Rapid increases in deforestation and erosion at the upper levels of the Ganges river increases the deposition of silt at the lower level, which is already measured at 2 million tonnes annually, along with increased salinity has led to rampant desertification of land. In Bangladesh, the diversion has raised salinity levels, contaminated fisheries, hindered navigation and posed a threat to water quality and public health. Such silt levels are believed to be adversely affecting the Hooghly river and the Kolkata Port. A bilateral treaty was signed by the then-Indian Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda and the then-Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed on December 12, 1996 in the Indian capital of New Delhi. The treaty established a 30-year water-sharing arrangement with guaranteed minimum quantities of water supply for Bangladesh, whose right as a lower-level riparian was recognised.
The formation of an Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina Wajed, daughter of Mujibur Rehman, entered discussions with the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Both leaders met in Delhi and signed a 30 year agreement for the allocation and use of water from the Ganga river. According to the treaty, the water of the Ganges river would be distributed from Farakka for the two countries between January 1 and May 31 and that India would maintain the flow at Farakka at the average level of previous 40 years. At any critical period, Bangladesh would get a guaranteed flow of 35,000 cubic feet per second. The treaty also permits the construction of barrages and irrigation projects in Kushtia and the Gorai-Madhumati River in Bangladesh, draining the southwestern districts and thus preserving the environment, natural and economic resources including the world's largest mangrove forests in Sundarbans by preventing salinity from the Bay of Bengal. the 1996 treaty established a solution and ceased strains in Indo-Bangladeshi relations. The treaty has been attacked by the Awami League's main rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which hostile to India, but it did not cancel the treaty when it came to power. The BNP and other Bangladeshi political factions allege that India is drawing excessive water and the amount allocated to Bangladesh is unjust and insufficient. India in turn has complained that the water allocated to Bangladesh leaves it with less water than necessary for the functioning of the Kolkata Port and the National Thermal Power Corporation in Farakka. While the treaty is currently being implemented, the common perception is that Bangladesh has received the short end of the stick and receives less than it's rightful amount of water because of India's supremacy in the region.
