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The government on Thursday expressed its concerns at India’s plan to divert waters from the common river Teesta by digging two more canals and setting up two hydropower plants upstream in its West Bengal state.

State minister for water resources Zaheed Farooque told reporters after a meeting at the foreign ministry that the Joint Rivers Commission had already prepared a draft of a letter to raise the matter formally with New Delhi.

‘We came to know from newspaper reports in India as well as in Bangladesh that India took a plan to dig two more canals to divert water from the Teesta upstream in West Bengal. It is alarming,’ Farooque said.

He said that Bangladesh knew nothing officially about India’s fresh plan to divert Teesta waters and the construction of hydropower plants on the same river in Darjeeling, as it shares at least 54 rivers as a lower riparian country with India.

‘It is a matter of concern for us and that is why we are going to send a letter to the Indian government in a couple of days seeking to know about the reported plan to divert waters from the trans-boundary river Teesta,’ said the junior minister.

Water resources expert Ainun Nishat said that water management had two sides - one is political and the other is technical.

‘The whole matter of diverting additional water from the Teesta, as reported in newspapers, has to be handled politically. It cannot be resolved on the technical front as the appropriate legal instrument is not available there,’ said Nishat, also a former member of JRC.

He said that the government had to react to media reports on the matter.

Asked about the Indo-Bangladesh JRC meeting in Dhaka for resolving the much-awaited Teesta water sharing, the state minister for water resources said that  they were expecting a meeting to be held before the visit of prime minister Sheikh Hasina to India in September.

He said that he had already invited his Indian counterpart to visit Bangladesh in March or April, but was yet to get any confirmation.

Both India and Bangladesh in the previous JRC meeting decided that the two countries would share waters after ensuring the flow required for the river’s existence, Zaheed said.

River researchers feared that the decision of West Bengal to dig two more canals to divert water from the river Teesta would badly affect the lives and livelihoods of about two crore people in Bangladesh’s north.

Northern Bangladesh will grow drier because of the arbitrary withdrawal of water, the researchers said, dealing a severe blow to the region’s nature and environment, which are already under tremendous stress from the impacts of changing climate.

Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon general secretary Sharif Jamil said that the diversion of water from any common river by the upper riparian country was inhumane.

‘What is happening to the Teesta upstream in India is alarming. The river is just being killed. No country can do this,’ the green activist observed.

The much-awaited 38th ministerial-level meeting of the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission concluded in New Delhi in August 2022 without any progress in signing a Teesta water-sharing deal.

India had kept the talks on sharing waters of common rivers with Bangladesh stalled for over 13 years, holding back the signing of interim agreements on the Teesta and Feni rivers and making negotiations on the six others uncertain.

The 37th JRC ministerial meeting was held in New Delhi in March 2010 although the meeting was supposed to be held at least once a year.

Although the 38th meeting was scheduled to be held in Dhaka, India had declined since 2010 to hold the dialogue sought by Bangladesh to settle outstanding issues.

The Teesta, once a mighty river flowing from Himalaya glaciers, now mostly runs like a stream in Bangladesh in the lean period and overflows during the monsoon which causes frequent floods in the region.

Bangladesh has been waiting for decades for a water-sharing treaty to be signed over the Teesta. But West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in 2011 refused to allow such a deal between India and Bangladesh, highlighting the need for water for farmers in the Indian state.

Water Development Board officials said that four canals were arbitrarily withdrawing water from the Teesta in West Bengal before the latest announcement came from the Indian state government about digging two more canals to serve around one lakh farmers in Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar.

The foreign ministry’s spokesperson Seheli Sabrin said that Dhaka was cautiously observing the matter and was trying to know about it as the issue was linked to the life and livelihoods of the country’s people.

She said that the foreign ministry was working with the JRC and the water resources ministry in this regard.

At the weekly media briefing at Segunbagicha, Seheli, also the director general of the public diplomacy wing, said that Dhaka would seek clarification from Delhi over the matter.

On March 4, Indian newspaper The Telegraph reported the transfer of 1,000 acres of land to the irrigation ministry of West Bengal to excavate two new canals for withdrawing water from the Teesta and the Jaldhaka.

According to Indian media reports, there are 42 dams built on the Teesta starting from Sikkim.

The Teesta flows some 115 kilometres inside Bangladesh, according to the WDB, including 13 kms upstream Teesta Barrage built by Bangladesh in Lalmonirhat.

India’s Gajoldoba Barrage project on the Teesta was launched in 1975 with a plan to irrigate 9.22 lakh hectares of agricultural land in north Bengal of West Bengal with the plan to route water from the river through canals on its banks, reported the Telegraph.