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During ebb-tide, it moves with reduced flow of sweet water. The combined ebb-
flows diminish for 10 days, raising the bed and in the long run, may revert the river
to pre-barrage condition. Owing to variable flows, the banks would become unstable
and cause continuous bank-slips and consequent loss of land and increase of silt and
would further raise the bed. Intensive dredging to keep up the navigation channel
would be required as before, with prohibitive rise of cost. For disposal of spoils,
more land would be required. Salinity would intrude toward land because of variable
flows and spoil farmland, ground water and water for drinking and use in industries.
Bore tides in the port area will also increase. The Treaty is technically unsound. The
water-sharing ratio is not consistent with the basic theory of soil mechanics; frequent
forward and backward movements of flow will not keep the soil static and stable in
the banks and the bed. It will always remain under-stressed with inward or outward
force like a tidal reach. This unnatural situation will destabilise the feeder canal and
the reach of the parent river, the Ganga downstream and the Bhagirathi-Hooghly for
decades to come. The reaches will never stabilise and return to the regime condition.
Siltation and erosion can return if they are not properly maintained.
Water-sharing by properly operating gates of the barrage would be quite diffi-
cult. Many of these and the regulators have to be frequently raised and downed.
Discharges in the Ganga and the Bhagirathi-Hooghly via the feeder canal fell up to
end-April and increased thereafter. This arrangement was technically sounder and
it became easier to implement the 1977 short-term accord and the 1982 MOUs.
The barrage gates and the canal regulator were operated more easily than under the
Treaty.
The Treaty was technically unsound from another aspect too. The earlier accords
and three Agreement/MOUs of 1977, 1982 and 1985 calculated the flows, reaching
Farakka on the basis of 75% availability from the data observed for 26 years -
from 1948 to 1973, keeping a latitude of 25%, presumably in view of (a) vari-
ations of flows reaching Farakka, (b) dead storage in the river, (c) utilization by
upper riparian states, and (d) maximum probable years of occurrence. However, the
flow data between 1974 and 1977 were not taken into account for some objections
by Bangladesh. The agreement and the MOUs rightly envisaged the variations of
the flows for some obvious reasons. An increasing population needs more use of
water. The Farakka barrage was constructed with a raised crest-level, higher than
the deepest level of the river-bed by about 2-3 m.
Like a dam in the hilly region of a river, whose design provides one, a dead stor-
age was deemed necessary, upstream of the barrage, by experts in the Agreement
and the MOUs. The experts, who drafted these, kept in view the interests of upper
riparian States of India and provided for 25% of water as reserve for their with-
drawal and use. However, the Treaty of 1996 arrived at the volume of flow, reaching
Farakka, as the average of the total for 40 years, from 1949 to 1988; for some
unknown reason, the flows of 8 years - of 1948 and from 1989 to 1996 - was
not taken into account. They took the total flow of the Ganga reaching Farakka; this
was a technically erroneous decision. Every river flow varies and in the case of the
Ganga, it was likely to be less in future. Both dead storage and the needs of the upper
States were ignored; the full flow determined the sharing ratio. This was an incorrect
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