The Ganga Basin Management - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 243

upstream country. The upstream country, being under no economic compulsion
to reach an accord has to have other incentives to undertake actions jointly with
downstream countries.
(b) A downstream country located at the mouth of a river may not only withdraw
water from the river but also pollute it, thus scoring an economic advantage over
the upstream countries, in such instances, co-riparian countries have to abide by
pollution control regulations, or agreements.
The report adds that co-operative action will vary greatly from situation to situ-
ation. If the concerned countries have a common cultural heritage and traditionally
good relationships, reaching an agreement becomes simpler.
Information should be sought about the effects of alternative schemes of devel-
opment and use on each riparian country. The World Bank recognizes that, besides
goodwill, basin countries have to be committed to reach an accord and be willing to
share technical and economic data. A slew of technical, economic, legal and other
data is required to satisfy concerned governments, external financing or other agen-
cies so that the solution is equitable and feasible. The Indus Treaty between India
and Pakistan is a relevant example.
Possibilities within each country should be explored for providing the services
from water resources that might be secured through international action. The Volta
River Basin Treaty is one such example. If a country has limited ability to make
technical, economic and social studies, international agencies and members of
the international community, such as United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), International Development Bank (IDB), the Organization of American
States (OAS) etc. should provide the needed assistance and aid in the training
of professional personnel within the countries. Expertise is required to generate
information on alternative scheme of development, to assess the advantages of co-
operation and to proceed with the construction of the projects. If this expertise is
not available for lack of experience and trained personnel for one or more of the
co-basin countries, outside assistance must be sought. Actually, assistance may not
elude, even if basin countries already have a relatively high professional compe-
tence in water resource management, such as, Greece and Yugoslavia had in the
Varder-Axios Basin Project.
A concerted effort is necessary to forge basic agreements on the technical aspects
of alternative schemes for management and use. Negotiations on substantive norma-
tive issues will be needlessly complicated and prolonged if there are disagreements
on basic technical issues, which can be readily resolved by working groups of
experts from the basin countries, or by a more structured joint technical commit-
tee in charge of coordinating and integrating the basic data-gathering and technical
feasibility studies. To take the example of the Ganga river treaty between India
and Bangladesh, although the Joint River Commission comprised technical experts
from two countries, the proposal of augmentation of the Ganga flow at Farakka fell
through, as the two countries did not agree on the alternative schemes, proposed by
each of them.