Faruque Ahamed :
News reports said the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) have launched a three-day long march towards Teesta river entry point into Bangladesh at Lalmonirhat from Thursday.
The major opposition BNP and its allies have also announced a long march programme to the region on April 22 and 23 while party leaders blamed that the government is creating various bottlenecks on the way.
BNP leaders have urged the government to join the
march and join their voice to people’s protest against Indian water, aggression. Without the due share of the Teesta water the region will turn into desert and especially the food production in three districts covering the Teesta Irrigation Dam Project will face severe setback to affect the nation’s food security.
Earlier, CPB and BSD wanted to hand over a memorandum to Foreign Minister at the Foreign Office in the capital demanding government action to get the due share of Teesta river water; but the law enforcers blocked their way.
Contrary to it, the matter of the fact is that when Teesta is dying without water, the government is all praise to the Indian government for holding it back to power supporting a farcical election; no matter at what cost to the nation.
News reports said, Teesta is receiving only 300 to 500 cusec of water daily now compared to 5,000 cusec in the dry season in previous years and it is turning the once mighty river to a bottom line water canal.
The river bed is now silted with staggering sand dunes rendering the Teesta Irrigation Dam useless fast turning the region into desert. Meanwhile, irrigation to Boro crop has almost come to a halt forcing farmers to use diesel-run deep tube wells at higher cost. The Department of Agricultural Extension has already reduced the Boro targets in the Teesta dam irrigation area to almost halves and whatever water is flowing to the river bed now is being rationed to few selected areas while angry farmers are destroying the canal network at other places in absence of water. This is one side of the story. On the other hand, the West Bengal government has already doubled the Teesta water irrigation project area to over 9 lakhs hectares filtering almost all water flow from the river at Gojolduba point in the upstream of Bangladesh border.
All these developments are taking place under the very nose of the governemnt and yet it is keeping mum and tight lipped raising no visible protest whatsoever to ask the Indian government to give the due Teesta water share to Bangladesh.
Leaders of various socio-political bodies have meanwhile raised question as to why the government is not doing what it should have done to put a strong case to the Indian government as to why the West Bengal government is unilaterally taking away all water leaving almost nothing for downstream Bangladesh to use it for navigation and in irrigation projects.
Most people fear that the Awami League government has no political clout to handle sensitive issue with Delhi as much as the West Bengal state government has to take away vital advantage at the cost of Bangladesh. Both West Bengal and Delhi are using the Awami League government’s apparently submissive policy to India.
The Indian Prime Minister was scheduled to sign the Teesta Water Sharing Agreement in September 2011 but he backtracked using the shield of the West Bengal Chief Minister Momota Benarjee’s objection. Meanwhile Bangladesh has provided all unilateral concessions to India including the transit facility and it is being extended further this time through land, river, railway and air.
But Teesta has been rendered to become fully dry in the meantime and people here only wonder what importance the Bangladesh government has now to the Indian state government in Kolkata or to Delhi.
Experts are always demanding basin-wise water resource management of all cross border rivers under the auspices of a regional water management commission. It must include India, China, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. But India basically remained opposed to such idea thus making Bangladesh the worst victim of its water aggression across the border.
It is high time, we believe, Bangladesh must raise its voice and people from all strata of life must join hand at the same time to force India to deal directly with the life and death issue for the people of Bangladesh.
The present government has made itself weak as against India for depending exclusively on Delhi to justify the voterless election. So it is no use asking the government of Sheikh Hasina to be strong with India for the water-sharing cause of Bangladesh. Water-sharing demand is the people’s demand and it has to be pressed as the people’s demand and our hope is that India should understand how important is the need of just water-sharing with Bangladesh for the good and happy relationship between the two countries. No relationship between government to government can last without popular support.
News reports said the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) have launched a three-day long march towards Teesta river entry point into Bangladesh at Lalmonirhat from Thursday.
The major opposition BNP and its allies have also announced a long march programme to the region on April 22 and 23 while party leaders blamed that the government is creating various bottlenecks on the way.
BNP leaders have urged the government to join the
march and join their voice to people’s protest against Indian water, aggression. Without the due share of the Teesta water the region will turn into desert and especially the food production in three districts covering the Teesta Irrigation Dam Project will face severe setback to affect the nation’s food security.
Earlier, CPB and BSD wanted to hand over a memorandum to Foreign Minister at the Foreign Office in the capital demanding government action to get the due share of Teesta river water; but the law enforcers blocked their way.
Contrary to it, the matter of the fact is that when Teesta is dying without water, the government is all praise to the Indian government for holding it back to power supporting a farcical election; no matter at what cost to the nation.
News reports said, Teesta is receiving only 300 to 500 cusec of water daily now compared to 5,000 cusec in the dry season in previous years and it is turning the once mighty river to a bottom line water canal.
The river bed is now silted with staggering sand dunes rendering the Teesta Irrigation Dam useless fast turning the region into desert. Meanwhile, irrigation to Boro crop has almost come to a halt forcing farmers to use diesel-run deep tube wells at higher cost. The Department of Agricultural Extension has already reduced the Boro targets in the Teesta dam irrigation area to almost halves and whatever water is flowing to the river bed now is being rationed to few selected areas while angry farmers are destroying the canal network at other places in absence of water. This is one side of the story. On the other hand, the West Bengal government has already doubled the Teesta water irrigation project area to over 9 lakhs hectares filtering almost all water flow from the river at Gojolduba point in the upstream of Bangladesh border.
All these developments are taking place under the very nose of the governemnt and yet it is keeping mum and tight lipped raising no visible protest whatsoever to ask the Indian government to give the due Teesta water share to Bangladesh.
Leaders of various socio-political bodies have meanwhile raised question as to why the government is not doing what it should have done to put a strong case to the Indian government as to why the West Bengal government is unilaterally taking away all water leaving almost nothing for downstream Bangladesh to use it for navigation and in irrigation projects.
Most people fear that the Awami League government has no political clout to handle sensitive issue with Delhi as much as the West Bengal state government has to take away vital advantage at the cost of Bangladesh. Both West Bengal and Delhi are using the Awami League government’s apparently submissive policy to India.
The Indian Prime Minister was scheduled to sign the Teesta Water Sharing Agreement in September 2011 but he backtracked using the shield of the West Bengal Chief Minister Momota Benarjee’s objection. Meanwhile Bangladesh has provided all unilateral concessions to India including the transit facility and it is being extended further this time through land, river, railway and air.
But Teesta has been rendered to become fully dry in the meantime and people here only wonder what importance the Bangladesh government has now to the Indian state government in Kolkata or to Delhi.
Experts are always demanding basin-wise water resource management of all cross border rivers under the auspices of a regional water management commission. It must include India, China, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. But India basically remained opposed to such idea thus making Bangladesh the worst victim of its water aggression across the border.
It is high time, we believe, Bangladesh must raise its voice and people from all strata of life must join hand at the same time to force India to deal directly with the life and death issue for the people of Bangladesh.
The present government has made itself weak as against India for depending exclusively on Delhi to justify the voterless election. So it is no use asking the government of Sheikh Hasina to be strong with India for the water-sharing cause of Bangladesh. Water-sharing demand is the people’s demand and it has to be pressed as the people’s demand and our hope is that India should understand how important is the need of just water-sharing with Bangladesh for the good and happy relationship between the two countries. No relationship between government to government can last without popular support.
