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EMERGING ISSUES
Indian plan to divert water: Bangladesh concerned
By BSS, Dhaka, May 7, 2003, 15:56
The recent Indian plan to
divert water from Ganges-Brahmaputra basins through link canals
has created concerns among Bangladeshi experts who fear this
would permanently deprive the lower riparian country from
natural flow of waters in common rivers.
A number of experts and officials said the Indian plan would
also cause severe flooding during monsoon, worst draught in lean
period and expansion of salinity across the country due to
upward intrusion of sea waters for want of necessary flow of
fresh waters due to upstream withdrawal.
The New Nation in Bangladesh and several Indian newspapers
recently published reports on the Indian plan to link all rivers
of the country through link canals and divert water from one
basin to another. The Indian experts too outlined their plan in
the recent Third World Water Forum conference in Japan as weekly
Newsweek made a story on the plan.
The Ganges and Brahmaputra are two major basins with a number of
tributaries flowing through both the countries.
According to reports received here, former Indian Chief Justice
B N Kripal ordered his government to link all major rivers to
develop a “river network” by digging canals across India within
2012, a directive pronounced just a day before his retirement.
The Indian Supreme Court also ordered setting up of a high-
powered task force to implement the project. The Indian
government earlier set a deadline to implement the project by
2043.
The Indian Attorney General informed the court that President
APJ Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee were
personally overseeing the project in line with the order though
finance was the main obstacle for its implementation.
According to available information, the total cost of the
proposed project has been estimated to be 120 billion US dollars
(approximately 560,000 crore Indian Rupees) while a task force
has been formed with former IAS official and RSS leader Suresh
Provoho as its head in line with the court order.
The amount is reported to be 10 times higher than the entire
expenditure in irrigation sector in India since 1947.
Under the Indian plan, the New Delhi authorities want to divert
the waters of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Mohanadi to
draught-prone areas in southern and western India through
digging 30 major canals with a total length of 12,500 kilometres.
The plan also has a component of constructing 36 large
embankments or reservoirs, all aimed at diverting 17,300 crore
cubic metres of water mainly from the Ganges, Brahmaputra and
Mohanadi basins and facilitate irrigation on 340 lakh hectares
of land.
The project has a target to generate 34,000 MW power through the
process.
The Indian government believes that, according to available
reports, with the implementation of the project the annual yield
of food grains in the country will stand at 450 billion tonnes
by 2050 from the existing 200 billion tonnes.
Analysing the Indian plan, a Bangladeshi hydrologist said that
the Indian authorities wanted to bring Brahmaputra water to
Farakka point from the Sunkoshi through Bhutan via Manosh to be
diverted to Mohanadi of Orissa to be led further to Godavari.
On the other hand, waters will be diverted for irrigation from
Nepal through Ghagra and Gandhak to Uttar Prodesh and from Koshi
to Bihar, he said.
Officials said currently Bangladesh was not getting its due
share of the Ganges water despite a water treaty and if the
Indian plan was realised the country would also be deprived of
normal flow of the Brahmaputra.
Currently Bangladesh gets one lakh Cusec of water through the
Brahmaputra which is needed to stop intrusion of saline water
from the Bay of Bengal, they said, adding the withdrawal of
Brahmaputra waters would create the much feared salinity
problem.
“So long Farakka was called a death trap and with the
implementation of the Indian plan Brahmaputra too will be a
death trap in next 10 to 15 years,” an official said.
Source : The New Nation
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