NEW DELHI/DHAKA, 2 October 2003 — Bangladesh has objected to a controversial Indian plan to divert water from some of its rivers saying the plan would spell ecological and economic disaster for downstream Bangladesh.
India has announced a plan to divert surplus water from rivers in its flood-prone northeast to dry western and southern parts of the country, but the northeastern rivers flow from India, through Bangladesh to the sea.
“How can India take such a unilateral decision of changing the course of rivers that have been flowing down to our country without consulting us?” said Anwarul Haq, spokesman for the Bangladesh Embassy in India.
Bangladeshi Water Resources Minister Hafizuddin Ahmed registered his country’s objections during a two-day meeting of the neighbors’ Joint River Commission that ended in New Delhi yesterday.
India has not set a deadline for the $2.0 billion project, which is an effort to control droughts and floods in river-basin states, and one Indian official said Bangladesh should not worry too much because the project was still at an early stage.
“Bangladesh has been assured that the project is in a conceptual stage and nothing has been finalized yet,” N.N. Goswami, an Indian Water Resources Ministry official, said.
Bangladesh says the plan violates a 1996 water-sharing treaty and will hit its environment, agriculture and forests and water transport system as more than 50 rivers from India, including the Ganges and Brahmaputra, flow into Bangladesh.
During the dry season, about 70 percent of Bangladesh’s river water comes from the Brahmaputra.
