Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
solve such an intractable problem so quickly, which eluded previous governments,
formed by political opponents of the new parties in power in Dhaka and New Delhi.
e) Was such a long-term accord really necessary for either or both countries?
It was intriguing that such a historic long-term treaty was signed after Jyoti Basu
returned from a visit to Dhaka in November 1996 and publicly announced that a
short-term agreement of two to three years' validity was in the offing. Not only
opposition parties but other left parties in the coalition ministry that Mr. Basu
headed, were taken aback when the treaty was found to be of 30 years' validity.
Prime Minister Deve Gowda met Mr. Basu in New Delhi a day before the signing
ceremony and convinced him about the merits of a long-term accord. A veteran of
behind-the-door diplomacy, Mr. Basu was the kingpin in bringing the two countries
together to resolve the issues and everything happened as he desired. Why did he
lead India to ink such a treaty of dubious benefits without detailed examination of
relevant data, particularly when it had no provision of augmenting the Ganga water
flow at Farakka? This was strange and Mr. Basu did not give any clarification to the
people through the media.
Bangladesh required more water than it agreed to in the Treaty. Its demand was
44,000 cusecs in the lean season, but as the Treaty was silent on augmentation, it had
to remain content with its share of the Ganga water at Farakka. With more water,
its problems of irrigation, navigation, salinity, fall in ground-water level and overall
environmental decline etc. could have eased, or been arrested.
Seeking and reaching an understanding about augmentation needed more time;
if this was not available, a short-term accord of two to five years' validity could be
struck, but a 30-year Treaty bypassed this major issue, entailing sacrifice of basic
interests of two countries. Expectedly, the Treaty invited far-reaching adverse effects
in both sides.
f) As regards technical soundness and feasibility of the augmentation scheme,
both sides depended heavily on technical experts. The JRC was active for two
decades and kept all records, collected since 1948 and the JCE was also looking
into the issue for long. The discharge of an alluvial river depends on many factors.
Some of these are characteristics of the catchment area, human habitation, forest-
cover, development of water-resources through irrigation and supply of drinking
water, industries, erosion and siltation etc. Because of rapid rise in population in
India, the surface features of catchment areas changed fast. New houses were built
and more and more land came under the plough. New towns and industries came up,
raising the demand for water for sundry purposes. Forests were cleared for meeting
rising demands of fire-wood, furniture and building materials; this reduced rainfall
and ground-water availability, caused erosion of banks, siltation in the river-bed and
affected discharges in the river. Thus, any assumption of the volume of discharge
over 30 years, based on average of past 40 years is bound to be technically unsound
and go wrong. The quantum of flow, supposed to be available at Farakka, as given
in Annexure-II was impractical, because it may go down in future. It could be true
for a short period of two to five years, but may not be so for 30 years, because a
lot of changes can occur meanwhile in the catchment area and new water resources
projects may come up, requiring water for various activities. Thus, discharges in
Search WWH ::




Custom Search