Chronology of Events - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 235

Year Event

1984 The validity of the MOU on the sharing of the Ganga water in the dry season

expires in June.
The 26th JRC meeting is held in March in Dhaka but finds no solution of the
augmentation problem. The Bangladesh side of the JRC publishes a
document which candidly admits the strength of criticism to its own as well
as of the India's proposals.
Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India assassinated on 20th October and
Rajiv Gandhi takes charge.
Obaidullah Khan resigns from his post and is replaced by Air Vice Marshal
Aminul Islam, a hard-liner against the Indian approach on the issue.
The Bangladesh government publishes 'The Ganges Water Issue' in December
in a strongly-worded re-statement of its earlier positions.

1985 Ramesh Bhandari, India's Foreign Secretary, goes to Dhaka in April to break

the impassé with Bangladesh and get negotiations going again.
Rajiv Gandhi visits the cyclone-affected site of Urir Char in Bangladesh and
meets President Ershad there; both want progress on the river-water issue.
New Delhi sends Ramesh Bhandari to Dhaka again along with a special envoy,
Shiv Shankar in July to proceed further of the issue.
The Commonwealth Heads of State conference is held in Nassau, Bahamas in
October, where India and Bangladesh work out an agreement; Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi and President Ershad formalize it with a communiqué.
The 2nd Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is signed on 22nd November
by the Ministers for Irrigation and Water Resources of both countries to be
valid for three years. It follows, by and large, the same principles of sharing
of the Ganga water as the first MOU in 1982.
A Joint Committee of Experts (JCE) is formed with the task of completing a
joint study of alternatives for sharing and augmentation of water of rivers,
common to India and Bangladesh.

1986, 1987 As many as nine meetings of the JCE along with some meetings of the

technical sub-committee and two ministerial review meetings are held
between August 1986 and May 1987, but they remain too inconclusive.
However, a new approach emerges for construction of internal barrages and
gravity link canals within Bangladesh.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President H. M. Ershad agree in July 1986
that the two governments should simultaneously approach Nepal for holding
a meeting to discuss the water resources issue.
Delegates of both the countries from the JCE go to Kathmandu and meet a team
of Nepal government's Water and Foreign Ministry officials for three days in
end-October 1986. The discussions are inconclusive on the questions of how
Nepal would be benefited and how the Nepalese government would be
included in the discussion.
The India's Foreign Minister agrees to prepare a draft position paper of Nepal's
role in river development in a meeting with the Foreign Ministers of
Bangladesh and Nepal, which could lay down the logic behind 'joint
approach' and the true meaning of 'mutual benefit', but the position paper
never comes out.
Anisul Islam Mahmud, Irrigation Minister of Bangladesh wants to discuss the
entire proposal before the Bangladesh cabinet on 4th January, 1987 but it
concluded mid-way.