NO meeting of Joint River Commission (JRC) was held between Bangladesh and India in the past six years although it was supposed to meet at least twice a year to settle issues relating to common rivers. An English daily reported on Tuesday that the latest JRC meeting was held in New Delhi in March 2010. India last week opened all sluice gates of Farakka Barrage without any consultation with Bangladesh. In the meantime several lakh people, croplands, educational institutions in low-lying areas adjacent to the River Padma have been badly affected by the sudden swelling of the river. It is posing a fresh threat of flooding in some parts of the country at a time when the flood situation was just improving. The JRC meeting was now essential as the River Padma, the lower part of the Ganges, was now swelling and causing huge damage inside Bangladesh.
Established in 1972, the Joint River Commission (JRC), among its other functions is supposed to ‘maintain liaison between the participating countries in order to ensure the most effective joint efforts to maximizing the benefits from common river systems to both the countries’. Although the two neighbours share 54 transboundary rivers, they have an agreement only on the Ganges water sharing and the Commission is mandated to monitor its implementation. Whereas the two countries need to have treaties on all the trans-boundary rivers so that both were equally benefitted. As the Commission should work to this end, it is apparent that its workload is huge and complicated. So, we should expect that JRC would go through very busy time to accomplish its works. But we have seen that this forum was not in a position to meet even once in past six years. Surely, it was affecting the overall activities of the forum for decision on sharing of common river waters.
India has been imposing its unilateral decision on common rivers’ water sharing. The flow in the Padma was the lowest ever in Bangladesh part during the lean season early this year because of unilateral withdrawal of water from the upstream in India to ‘save’ Kolkata port. Now India with its unilateral decision has opened all the gates of Farakka Barrage to ‘save’ Bihar from flood, inviting disaster for Bangladesh. India is using delaying tactics to solve Teesta water issue. In this background Bangladesh should continue its efforts to ensure rightful share of waters of the common rivers the two neighbours shared.
