Agreements & MOUs - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 191

apprehension, because India had already started constructing barrages across some
rivers, like the Gomati and the Teesta. Therefore, instead of raising only one claim
of sharing and augmenting the Ganga water, Bangladesh thought it prudent to claim
share of water from all rivers, flowing from India into Bangladesh. It contemplated
constructing two barrages, one over the Ganga-Padma below the Hardinge Bridge
and the Gorai outfall and the other over the Brahmaputra near Bahadurabad, both
within Bangladesh.
Time passed but a durable solution eluded. The two-year MOU of 1982 expired
after the dry season of 1984. Another MOU that was signed in November 1985 was
to be in force until 1988. The so called 'old line' of Bangladesh on augmentation
gave way to the new approach. Politicians as well as technocrats apprehended that
the earlier proposal of augmentation by building storage reservoirs in the upper
reaches of the Ganga would increase, by more than 30%, the existing water body
of Nepal and submerge the scarce land of Nepal, particularly the farm land in the
plains. Moreover, implementation of these schemes would take a long time, during
which India's demands, or the Ganga's upper reaches would be stronger and leave
no scope for increasing the dry-season flow at Farakka.
Dhaka's new approach for augmentation by joining the Brahmaputra with the
Ganga within Bangladesh resembled India's proposal of 1978, which it had been
rejecting so far. It had vehemently criticized it, dismissing it as India's hostil-
ity toward Bangladesh. The new thinking of Dhaka, which was similar to India's
1978 proposal was, therefore, 'betrayal and treachery' of India. The proposed
scheme was under wraps and an abiding solution of sharing and augmentation
issues gradually emerged. In an interview in 1987, Bangladesh Water Minister,
Anisul Islam Mahmud clarified that there were two parts in this new approach -
one was official and the other unofficial. The official approach had three main
elements:
i) The Government of Nepal should be brought into the negotiations.
ii) Negotiations should cover all common rives, not just the Ganges; and
iii) The two issues of sharing and augmenting the dry-season flow of the Ganga
should be separated and priority be given to the issue of sharing water.
However, Mr. Mahmud did not disclose the unofficial approach and kept it a
secret, probably to ward off the supporters of the old approach. Circumstantial evi-
dences and future developments clearly indicated that the demand for a tripartite
understanding, or an agreement by inclusion of Nepal, gradually faded out in the
unreality of the situation.
A new impetus from India under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, recipro-
cated by Bangladesh President H. M. Ershad and his Water Resources Minister,
Mr. Mahmud, brought into focus a settlement. President Ershad made Mr. Mahmud
the chief Bangladesh negotiator with India, over-ruling objections by the hardliners
in his country. A lot of changes had occurred by this time in the Joint Committee of
Experts (JCE) in Bangladesh. B. M. Abbas, a water resources engineer, and a senior
negotiator on the issue and a staunch supporter of the old line for more than two