Agreements & MOUs - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 150

feet on making an agreement on sharing of the Ganga water. The minimum period
of operation of Farakka feeder canal with 40,000 cusecs throughout the year for
five years after commissioning of the barrage, as was decided in the cabinet meeting
had not been followed in practice, leaving no scope to study its effects on Calcutta
Port and on the Bhagirathi-Hooghly and to curtail the discharge from the present
40,000 cusecs, if found harmless and not injurious to the health of Calcutta Port.
In a sense, the Farakka Barrage Project was never tested in field for a reasonable
period of at least five years and the huge expenditure on the project became virtually
infructuous.
The Agreement had other flaws too. Part A dealt with interim sharing of water,
available at Farakka, based on 75% availability from observed records between
1948 and 1973. A pre-determined flow which might be available at Farakka in the
next five years was considered for sharing at a certain ratio, not fixed in different
10-daily periods between January and May, every year. The minimum flow, likely to
be available in the last 10-daily period of April (21 st to 30 th ) was estimated at 55,000
cusecs, out of which India would get 20,500 cusecs (about 37.3%) and Bangladesh
34,500 cusecs (about 62.7%). Another provision in Article II was of great advantage
to Bangladesh. In an exceptionally low-flow season, the flow toward Bangladesh
would not go below 27,600 cusecs (80% of 34,500) in the last 10-day period of
April. In fact, this provision was made for any 10-daily period, specifying that the
flow toward Bangladesh would not be below 80% of the flow, shown in the sched-
ule. It meant that if the flow at Farakka came down to 40,000 cusecs in the last
10-days period of April, Bangladesh would still get 27,600 cusecs and India would
get the remaining 12,400 cusecs. We shall see later, whether this actually happened
at Farakka.
Under Article IV, a Joint Committee of the representatives, nominated by two
governments set up teams at Farakka and Hardinge Bridge (Bangladesh) to observe
and record daily flows at those places. Accordingly, the observation teams were
set up, every year, since 1978. Bangladesh kept a team at Farakka and India at
Hardinge Bridge; they worked in association with respective team of the other coun-
try. Observations at the two places were done jointly, from 1978 to 1982 in a cordial
atmosphere.
On Part B the future of the sharing of the Ganga water primarily depended. The
Agreement provided that the JRC would carry out investigation and study schemes
for augmentation and will submit recommendations to the two governments for con-
sideration within three years. This part, however, remained unresolved for the full
five-year term of the Agreement. A detailed discussion on this will follow, but this
much can be said here that the basic question of increasing the dry-season flow
could not be addressed in five years, in spite of prolonged negotiations in the Joint
Rivers Commission (JRC). Thus, the negotiations reached a stalemate by the end of
1982. To continue the discussions on this issue and also on the sharing arrangement
of water, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was agreed between India and
Bangladesh in October 1982 which the two governments signed on 7 th October 1982
in New Delhi during the visit of General H. M. Ershad, President of Bangladesh.
This will also be discussed afterward.