Farmer Abdul Hannan has given up IRRI-Boro cultivation due to the irrigation water crisis, even though he lives just a stone’s throw from the country’s largest surface-water irrigation network, the Ganges-Kobadak (GK) Project.

“But the water supply canal connected to the irrigation project remains bone-dry during the peak time for cultivation,” said Hannan, of Moslempur village under Kushtia’s Bheramara upazila.

“We have to depend on shallow pumps that draw groundwater to irrigate our paddy fields. It’s too expensive for us to afford,” he added.

So, Hannan has moved away from IRRI-Boro cultivation between January and March and switched to wheat and other crops that require less water during this period.

Hannan’s predicament echoes those of hundreds of farmers in the country’s southwest who are facing an irrigation water crisis, though the region hosts the country’s most extensive surface-water irrigation grid.

This is the result of the gradual decline in Padma’s water level, which is the main source of water for the Ganges-Kobadak (GK) project, over the past three decades, said local farmers and water resources experts.

“Around 25 to 30 years ago, we used to get sufficient water from the water supply canal to irrigate our fields that produce huge amounts of crops -- that canal has almost taken the look of a desert now,” said Hasan Ali Mondol, an elderly farmer from Bahirchar village under the same upazila.

It costs Tk 2,500 to Tk 3,000 to irrigate per bigha of land using shallow pumps.

“It is not viable for us,” he added.

A canal, top, connected to the main irrigation canal of the GK Project lies dry during the Boro season in Kushtia’s Bheramara. Photos: star

Even the shallow pumps have become useless in some areas as the level of groundwater has plummeted.

Nawa Khara village in Kushthia’s Mirpur upazila is one such place where the regular shallow pumps can no longer draw groundwater.

As the government has its largest surface-water irrigation network in this region, there is no state-sponsored groundwater irrigation system here.

“Now some wealthy people have set up deep tubewells in this area with their own money, and we have to buy irrigation water from them -- it is very costly,” said Sagor Biswas of Nawa Khara.

The GK Project began in the 1960s with the aim to irrigate around 197,000 hectares of arable land in Kushtia, Jhenaidah, Magura, and Chuadanga and adjoining districts in the southwest region.

Uninterrupted water supply to the GK Project area depends on the Padma’s water flow, which has dropped steadily since the Farakka Barrage came into operation in 1975.

After a water-sharing treaty between Bangladesh and India in 1996, the project area started receiving some water. However, the quantity often goes down as India withdraws Ganges water upstream, said an official of the Water Development Board (WDB).

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A dry paddy field due to lack of water in Bheramara. Photos: star

Because of the depleted river levels, the massive GK intake pumps were forced into complete shutdowns to avoid mechanical disaster many times in the past, said Md Mizanur Rahman, executive engineer of the GK Project Pump Station.

A minimum water level of 4.20 metres in the Padma is needed to run the pumps. When the river level drops below this level, particularly during the dry season, it is not possible to run the pumps, he added.

The GK Project was designed with a network of 193km of main canals, 467km of secondary canals, and 995km of tertiary canals.

Although all the main canals are still operational, around half of the secondary and tertiary canals have already become unusable due to the water crisis, said locals.

The project officials said they carry out routine dredging work in the canals, but it requires a comprehensive and large-scale dredging project to make all the canals operational again.

The ecological decline of the Padma began in 1975 following the commissioning of the 2,304m-long Farakka Barrage across the Ganges River in West Bengal, India.

Situated upstream, the barrage drastically reduced the volume of water entering downstream Bangladesh during the critical dry season.

To mitigate the escalating crisis, Bangladesh and India signed a historic 30-year Ganges Water-Sharing Treaty in 1996 that is going to end this year.

Under the agreement, India is supposed to discharge a specific amount of water depending on water flow in the upstream during the dry season from January to May every year.

A joint team of officials from both countries monitors the quantities of water discharge at the Farakka point in India and Hardinge Bridge point in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh got the highest volume of water in January 1998 when India discharged more than 2 lakh cusecs of water at Farakka point and Bangladesh got about 1.82 lakh cusecs at Hardinge Bridge point.

And the lowest was in March 1997 when India discharged only 48,487 cusecs of water and Bangladesh got 13,823 cusecs, according to the data of Joint River Commission (JRC).

JRC data shows that the quantities varied from year to year.

As per the treaty conditions, the water-sharing formula becomes ineffective if the discharge at the Farakka point falls below 50,000 cusecs, said Md Shibber Hossain, executive engineer of the North Bengal Hydrological Division of WDB in Pabna.

It requires a minimum flow of 30,000 cusecs of water at the Hardinge Bridge point to keep the Padma alive, he added.

“The flow of water in the Padma river depends on the amount of water discharged at the Farakka point. If the upstream flow is low, Bangladesh automatically receives a reduced share.”

The diversion of water upstream through several canals in India caused the long-term depletion of water in the Padma, he added.

The landmark 1996 Ganges Water Treaty is set to expire in December this year.

While Dhaka has initiated renewal talks with New Delhi, water experts and local officials are urging policymakers to negotiate stronger legal guarantees to safeguard water flow into Bangladesh.

The existing framework is outdated and fails to account for today’s environmental realities, Najmul Islam, dean of the faculty of life and earth science at Pabna University of Science and Technology, told The Daily Star.

The treaty prioritises only the water-sharing issue instead of protecting the entire ecosystem.

The existing treaty permits the distribution of the total volume of water. But around 35 to 40 percent of a river’s natural flow must be guaranteed to sustain its existence, and the remaining water should be distributed, he added.