INDIA’S present stance on the formula that effected the Ganges water sharing treaty signed with Bangladesh in 1996 appears to cast a shadow on the renewal of the agreement as it expires after 30 years in December. India’s foreign secretary is reported to have recently said that water has always been a priority among bilateral issues as the two countries share 54 rivers. India and Bangladesh have, however, only one water sharing treaty on the Ganges. India has high-handedly put on hold the signing of an instrument on the sharing of the water of the River Teesta, and six others, which Delhi and Dhaka agreed on in 2010, on a 50:50 per cent sharing formula, provisioning for 20 per cent of the water as environmental flow. India’s former high commissioner to Dhaka Pankaj Saran, now convener of the Delhi-based think tank NatStrat on strategic and security issues, told a Bangladesh media delegation in New Delhi on May 5, as New Age reported on May 12, that the Ganges water sharing formula as effected in the 1996 treaty, based on the historic water flow spanning 1949–1996, might not work any more after three decades as the population has increased and the water flow has decreased.
Whilst population growth in either of the countries should not hold water in water sharing treaties on common rivers, India should be held responsible for any decrease in the Ganges water flow at Farakka as it has for long been unilaterally withdrawing water from transboundary rivers, affecting life and livelihood in the lower riparian Bangladesh. A former Joint Rivers Commission, Bangladesh, member says that India has for long unilaterally withdrawn water from the Ganges further upstream, reducing the water flow at the Farakka point. It has earlier been reported that India has built at least 30 dams and a barrage upstream of the Teesta, for an example, never having cared to let Bangladesh know of its obstructing the natural flow of the cross-border river. It is, therefore, imperative that Dhaka should not consider any new formula for the Ganges treaty renewal on the excuse of reduced water flow at Farakka, for which New Delhi is responsible. The Ganges does not originate at Farakka and any unilateral withdrawal of water further upstream would reduce the water flow at the Farakka barrage. And this cannot be a benchmark for a new formula. A deviation from the 1996 formula for the sharing of the water of the Ganges would mean that Bangladesh would be further deprived.
It is time Dhaka asserted its position on the sharing of the Ganges water and boldly pushed for a more robust, ‘climate-ready’ treaty that accounts for water availability and equitable distribution, considering the dry-season water insufficiency issues that Dhaka has already taken up with New Delhi.
