Only a Barrage Can Save! - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 93

b) For restoration of the perennial navigation route between Kolkata and northern
India along the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly, through a Feeder Canal between the
Ganga and the Bhagirathi;
c) When the river's capacity increases, flood hazards on both banks in monsoon
months would be less and relieve drainage congestion;
d) Salinity in the Hooghly water near Kolkata would return to the potable limit; this
will improve water supply to the city and suburbs and save industrial machiner-
ies, using the river water as well as boost farm yields by decreasing salinity of
the soil and ground water;
e) Communication between the people of the partitioned regions of the northern and
southern banks of the Ganga would be restored, when a rail-cum-road bridge is
constructed over the barrage.
Effects of the Partition
The Bengal Boundary Commission, constituted by the Governor-General of India
in June 1947, headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe to demarcate the boundaries of India
with the newly created nation of Pakistan gave due consideration to maintaining
the continuity of the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly waterway. The demarcation was
done, inter alia , on the basis of contiguous areas of Muslims and non-Muslims.
Sir Radcliffe kept in mind the need for coordination between the two countries to
ensure head-water supply from the Ganga to the Hooghly. Non-Muslim members of
the Commission urged Sir Radcliffe that
It is necessary that some means, or other, should be found, by which an appreciable portion
of the Ganges floods can be induced to pass through the Nadia rivers in preference to the
Padma, the hydraulic conditions of which are, of course, much more efficient. In order to
do this and to prevent the Hooghly from languishing altogether and reviving the health and
industry of Bengal, it is absolutely necessary that the head-water of the Hooghly should be
under the control of the West Bengal State
The Commission gave due importance to this plea and dealt with the following
points:
i. If the city of Kolkata must be assigned to one or other of the States, what were
its claims to the control of the territory, such as all, or part, of the Nadia rivers,
or the Kulti rivers, upon which the life of Kolkata as a city and port depended?
ii. Could the attractions of the Ganga-Padma-Madhumati river-line displace the
strong claims of the heavy concentration of Muslim majorities in the districts
of Jessore and Nadia without doing too great a violence to the principle of the
terms of reference?
Keeping the above in view, the Commission demarcated the boundary in such
a way that the barrage, the Feeder Canal and all the head works of the project,
when eventually constructed, will be within the territory of India. The award of
Murshidabad to India, a Muslim-majority district, in exchange of Khulna, a Hindu
majority district was made with this in view.