NEWS report in a national English daily on Thursday said Teesta is flowing at its lowest in history during the current dry season, quoting the government water resources minister raising renewed question about the ecological future of the region. The minister has quoted the flow at 300 cusec of water now on March 18 compared to 1500 to 1800 cusec in the same period last year. It shows the drastic fall in the water level would put every irrigation and other water based farming in the region to come to a grinding halt however without any progress in sight to resolve the problem with India on the upstream.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Benarjee, who is widely blamed to have stalled the signing of the Teesta water sharing agreement during Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka in September 2011, herself visited Dhaka in February this year and assured the people of her ‘best help’ this time to resolve the problem. Mamata said ‘don’t worry, have faith in me to resolve the issue.’ She mentioned on that occasion that both sides have water problems and they would talk out them. She also talked about ratification of the boundary agreement by Indian Parliament to end the land dispute and swap of enclaves on both sides.
In fact, the entire Teesta water sharing issue is now locked in a quagmire which analysts in Bangladesh take as India’s lack of seriousness about the most important issue of water sharing from common international rivers.
West Bengal Chief Minister when she visited here with a big entourage asked to know what Bangladesh wants and India will accommodate. Now it is revealed that when she met Indian Prime Minister Modi the issue of water sharing of Teesta river was not even taken up and she did not give any answer to questions about it from the journalists.
Our weak leadership is not being taken seriously. This is unfortunate both for India and Bangladesh. In any country’s relations however we must say the people matter the most.
