Agreements & MOUs - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 200

tidal bores, which will seriously impede navigation. Fall in draught may render the port's
240 million rupee new container terminal inoperative in a decade.

Debesh Mukherjee, the first and former General Manager of the Farakka Barrage
Project questioned the sharing formula. He remarked;

The average data on the water-flow does not reflect the ground reality. Flow of water varies
from day to day. Under the agreement, the average flow in April has been shown to be
between 60,992 and 63,180 cusecs, whereas the actual average flow during the month
for the past decade has been about 54,000 cusecs. It would have been somewhat proper
if the average flow had been arrived at on the basis of data of the past decade rather
than the past 40 years. Naturally, the basis for the sharing formula is flawed as also the
quantum. Calcutta will get much less than what has been stated in the agreement, as the
take-off on the upstream, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, has been growing fast in
recent years.

Reactions in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh too, r eactions to the Treaty were varied, as in India. The leaders of
the Awami League which came to power were expectedly euphoric.

The agreement is yet another feather in Sheikh Hasina's cap. Nothing could have been more
wonderful and better-timed than this. This is the best that could happen to Bangladesh.

A professor of Dhaka University, Ainun Nishat was on a different plank.

The water available at Farakka is the residue left out, after utilization in upper reaches,
[which] .

The water made available to Bangladesh should be utilized judiciously, for the protec-
tion of environment and its uplift

... is India's own affair, provided the interests of Bangladesh did not suffer ...

. The upper riparian country would be responsible
for gradual increase of withdrawal in the upper reaches of the river”. [Translated from
Bengali]

...

Experts as well as common people felt what the manner in which Jyoti Basu
and his Finance Minister, Dr. Asim Dasgupta agreed to a 30-year treaty was rather
odd, because they thought, India would go in for a short-term agreement for two
to three years. A dramatic change in their stance surprised them. It was also
intriguing that India's Ministry of Surface Transport, Calcutta Port Trust, Central
Water Commission, Central Water and Power Research Station and Farakka Barrage
Project Authority as well as the provinces of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were kept in
the dark and not invited to the signing ceremony, unlike in the function of signing
the short-term agreement of 1975.
In short, many people, particularly politicians in power in both the countries, wel-
comed the treaty but opposition parties voiced against the Treaty. India's Bharatiya
Janata Party organized a huge rally of nearly a million people fromWest Bengal and
adjacent States at Farakka.