[🇧🇩] India's Water Terrorism Against Bangladesh

[Saif]

‘Govt to self-finance Padma Barrage, Teesta Mega Plan’

The government will construct the Padma Barrage and implement the Teesta Mega Plan with its own funds, Water Resources Minister Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee has told The Daily Star in an exclusive interview.

www.thedailystar.net

‘Govt to self-finance Padma Barrage, Teesta Mega Plan’

Water resources minister hopeful of Ganges treaty renewal by Dec 11

Pinaki Roy

Technical teams from both Bangladesh and India are working on the renewal [of the treaty]. Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee.

The government will construct the Padma Barrage and implement the Teesta Mega Plan with its own funds, Water Resources Minister Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee has told The Daily Star in an exclusive interview.

He also expressed hope that the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty with India would be renewed before its expiry on December 11 this year.

When asked about New Delhi’s response to the renewal, he said India is a friendly neighbouring country and that Bangladesh’s relations with all its neighbours will remain strong.

“Technical teams from both Bangladesh and India are working on the renewal, with both sides maintaining constant communication.”

He said expert teams are working to incorporate new conditions, including additional guarantee clauses, into the treaty.

On the Padma Barrage project approved recently by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), the minister said the project was initiated in 2002 by the then prime minister Khaleda Zia.

Though a feasibility study was almost complete by 2013, the subsequent governments didn’t proceed with the project. “Why it was not implemented remains unclear,” Anee said, adding that the interim government reinitiated the project in January this year.

When Prime Minister Tarique Rahman went to Rajshahi ahead of the February 12 national election, he made an electoral pledge to build the barrage.

“We have taken up this project as per his commitment, and it will be implemented entirely with government funds.”

Steps have been taken to conduct a fresh feasibility study, and if necessary, more studies will be carried out before starting construction, he said, adding that an allocation will be made in the upcoming budget for this purpose.

It will take seven years to build the barrage at a cost of around Tk 35,000 crore, with an average annual allocation of Tk 5,000 crore.

“I believe we will be able to complete this project with our own funding if we can curb corruption. The amount is very little when compared with the huge sums laundered out of the country in the past.”

Stressing the project’s importance, the minister said the barrage is vital for around seven crore people across 24 to 26 districts that face severe floods during the monsoon and water scarcity in the dry season.

Under the project, a reservoir will be created in the Padma River to store water to support agriculture and fish production.

Asked whether Bangladesh had any talks with India about the barrage, he said, “This is a matter of domestic interest. There is no need to discuss it with them.”

Regarding China’s interest in funding the Teesta project, he said, “It will require half the amount needed for the barrage. Why do we have to take it from China?

He also said a more detailed study is needed before any proposal on the project is placed at an ECNEC meeting.

CANAL-DIGGING PROGRAMME

Regarding the ambitious programme of digging 20,000km of canals, he said that in line with the party’s electoral pledge, the PM inaugurated the drive at Shahpara canal in Dinajpur on March 16, with local MPs launching the work in their areas the same day.

“We took up a 180-day programme aimed at digging 1,500km of canals in the first six months,” the minister said, adding that more than 800km of 666 canals have already been dug.

“Over the next five years, we expect to exceed the 20,000km target, with a possible range of 24,000-25,000km.”

Drawing inspiration from the historic canal-digging campaign initiated by BNP founder Ziaur Rahman in the late 1970s, the programme aims to boost the rural economy and combat falling groundwater levels, he said.

Once complete, it will enable farmers to use surface water for irrigation and also recharge the groundwater table, especially in the northern region.

Some experts have observed that the excavated canals may again be filled up during the monsoon if proper methods are not followed for excavation.

Regarding this, the minister said three agencies -- Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), and Water Resources Planning Organisation (WARPO) -- are conducting surveys to determine the right methods for excavation and ways to properly link them with rivers to keep the water flow steady.

“We are also engaging union parishads and locals in the canal-digging programme to make it successful.”

On curbing pollution in rivers and canals, especially those in and around Dhaka, the minister said the programme has the potential to spur a social movement against waste dumping in water bodies.

“We are having discussions with the World Bank, JICA [Japan International Cooperation Agency], and other development partners to implement a project to free the Buriganga from pollution.”

The minister further said they would remove all illegal structures on canals and poorly planned culverts obstructing the natural flow of water.

Over the years, houses, shops, and markets have been built encroaching on many canals. Local influential people also put up barriers on canals for fish farming.

As the canal excavation drive continues, the authorities will dismantle all illegal structures and recover the encroached areas, Anee said.

“Some obstacles may arise, but we must overcome them,” he said, adding that deputy commissioners and the relevant government agencies will take necessary steps in such cases.​

 

[Saif]

People pin hopes on Padma Barrage, experts urge caution over environmental fallout

For decades, people living along the Ganges-dependent regions of southwestern Bangladesh have watched rivers shrink, croplands struggle for water and salinity creep deeper into once-fertile areas. Now the ambitious Padma (Ganges) Barrage Project has rekindled hopes among residents, farmers and wat

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

People pin hopes on Padma Barrage, experts urge caution over environmental fallout

UNB

Published :
Jun 10, 2026 10:18
Updated :
Jun 10, 2026 10:18

For decades, people living along the Ganges-dependent regions of southwestern Bangladesh have watched rivers shrink, croplands struggle for water and salinity creep deeper into once-fertile areas.

Now the ambitious Padma (Ganges) Barrage Project has rekindled hopes among residents, farmers and water managers who see it as a long-awaited solution to the region’s growing water crisis.

Approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), the Tk 33,474-crore project is expected to be implemented over the next seven years.

The mega infrastructure initiative aims to restore river flows, improve irrigation and revive ecosystems across nearly one-third of Bangladesh that have been affected by reduced Ganges water entering from upstream.

Yet while many welcome the project as a potential game changer, experts warn that large-scale river interventions can also produce unintended environmental consequences if not carefully planned and monitored.

Hope for water, agriculture and rivers

In Rajbari’s Pangsha upazila, where the barrage is proposed near Charjiguri village under Habashpur Union, local residents are already discussing its potential benefits.

Survey teams have installed markers near a sluice gate on the flood protection embankment, signalling the planned project site.

For many farmers, the promise of a dependable water supply is the project’s biggest attraction.

Ayub Kazi, a 50-year-old trader and landowner in the area, believes surface water from the river would be far more beneficial than relying on groundwater.

“River water produces better yields. The groundwater here contains iron and is not as good for cultivation,” he said.

He added that many diesel-powered irrigation pumps have become difficult to operate because of fuel shortages, making alternative water sources increasingly important.

Water engineers working in Rajbari and neighbouring Kushtia echoed similar optimism, saying the barrage could help address environmental degradation caused by declining river flows over the years.

A region under stress

Experts say the consequences of reduced freshwater flow extend far beyond agriculture.

Speaking during a recent visit by journalists to Ganges-dependent areas of Kushtia and Rajbari, retired chief engineer and former secretary Engineer Aktar Hossain described the situation as increasingly alarming.

He warned that parts of the Khulna region could become unsuitable for habitation by 2050 if salinity intrusion continues unchecked.

The visit, organised with the participation of the International Farakka Committee (IFC), highlighted a range of challenges facing the southwest, including declining agricultural productivity, deteriorating fisheries, reduced navigability of rivers and damage to vegetation and wildlife.

Aktar Hossain said freshwater shortages have already affected multiple sectors of the regional economy while also contributing to health problems among local communities.

Community organisations working in coastal areas have reported growing shortages of safe drinking water as tube wells increasingly produce saline water.

At a recent roundtable organised by ActionAid Bangladesh, participants described how many residents, particularly in coastal districts, are struggling to secure potable water.

The effects are also being felt in the Sundarbans, where environmentalists say rising salinity is threatening the world’s largest mangrove forest.

Observers note that sundri trees, from which the forest derives its name, have declined significantly in some areas.

Expected gains

Officials of the Bangladesh Water Development Board said the barrage could help reverse many of these trends by retaining water during the dry season and ensuring continuous flow through major distributaries.

Engineer Rashidur Rahman, executive engineer of BWDB’s Water Development Division in Kushtia, said the project would help maintain water levels in the Gorai, Modhumati, Hisna and other distributaries of the Ganges.

The increased flow, he said, would gradually reduce salinity in southwestern districts and contribute to ecological recovery.

The project is also expected to strengthen the Ganges-Kobadak (GK) irrigation scheme, one of the country’s largest irrigation projects.

Rashidur Rahman said maintaining river levels at around 10 metres would comfortably exceed the minimum requirement for the GK pumping station and allow irrigation coverage to expand from about 55,000 hectares to 95,000 hectares.

Supporters estimate that nearly seven crore people across 19 districts could ultimately benefit through improved irrigation, increased agricultural production, enhanced fisheries and better water security.

Balancing benefits and risks

Despite the enthusiasm, water experts caution against viewing the barrage as a risk-free solution.

Large barrages alter natural river dynamics, affecting sediment movement, water quality and ecological processes.

Engineer Aktar Hossain stressed that every barrage inevitably carries some negative impacts and that policymakers must focus on minimising those effects through scientific planning and rigorous assessment.

“We need to utilise available computer models and conduct comprehensive studies so that adverse impacts remain as limited as possible,” he said.

He also argued that discussions on transboundary rivers often focus heavily on water quantity while neglecting water quality concerns.

He said pollution carried by the Ganges, including heavy metals, should receive greater attention in negotiations involving upstream and downstream countries.

He pointed to international examples where upstream countries have been held accountable for transboundary pollution, citing arrangements between Germany and the Netherlands regarding contamination in the Rhine River.

Beyond water flow

Former Jahangirnagar University vice-chancellor and IFC Bangladesh chief adviser Prof Jasim Uddin Ahmad raised additional concerns about heavy metals transported through Ganges sediments.

Such pollutants, he said, could pose long-term risks to both human health and river ecosystems.

He also highlighted broader environmental challenges linked to cross-border pollution.

Referring to studies conducted under his supervision, Jasim Uddin said emissions from coal-based industries in India contribute to air pollution affecting Bangladesh.

According to him, acid rain associated with those emissions may be linked to the top-dying disease that has affected sundri trees in the Sundarbans.

A defining water project

As Bangladesh moves forward with one of its largest water infrastructure projects, expectations remain high among communities that have long struggled with shrinking rivers and increasing salinity.

For many in the southwest, the Padma Barrage represents more than a structure across a river. It symbolises a chance to restore water security, revive agriculture and protect livelihoods.

But experts say the project’s ultimate success will depend not only on engineering excellence, but also on how effectively environmental risks are anticipated and managed.​

 

[Saif]

What India and Bangladesh get wrong about the Teesta

The Teesta river dispute demands acknowledging its profound ecological crisis rather than drafting outdated, politically driven treaties.

www.thedailystar.net

What India and Bangladesh get wrong about the Teesta

Galib Mahmud Pasha

In Debesh Roy's novel Teesta Parer Brittanto, a government survey begins at the riverbank. Suhas, the survey officer, works with Priyanath and Binodbabu to map the land. Pencil, plot numbers, and survey lines try to pin the Teesta to paper, but the riverbank has already defected from cadastral control. Gayanath, a local jotdar, watches. He owns land. He understands property and bureaucracy. As the survey nears completion, he approaches Suhas: ‘Sir, have you finished the map?’ The map is nearly done. But Gayanath’s question is not innocent. ‘Is the river breaking?’ he asks. A river that breaks banks, that erodes land, that creates chars and drowns forests cannot be fixed on a map. The question smuggles in a harder doubt: Is the river still moving? Still alive? The surveyors have drawn the river in one location. Gayanath names what they have done: ‘Where you have drawn the river, there is no river. This is a forest.’ The map describes a dead thing and calls it a river. But a river is what moves. A river is what breaks. Who decides what the river is? The surveyor draws his lines. Gayanath contradicts. Yet the Teesta continues its work of erasure.

On 3 October 2023, the wall of South Lhonak, a glacial lake in Sikkim destabilised by warming temperatures, collapsed. Water and sediment roared down the mountain. In hours, 270 million cubic metres of sediment entered the Teesta’s course. The Teesta III hydropower dam was destroyed, and several other dams along the Teesta River were damaged. The disaster caused 55 deaths, and 74 persons were reported missing in Sikkim. In one night, the Teesta shattered assumptions that had gestated across decades: that engineers can manage what nature generates, that maps can contain what lives. No treaty can step around this moment.

The barrage scheme requires at least 4,500 cusecs during the dry season to sustain agriculture across northern Bangladesh, flows have collapsed to near 400. Photo: S Dilip Roy

In Roy’s fictional world, Gayanath had already understood what modern diplomacy still struggles to acknowledge. The Teesta delivered its answer in sediment, shattered concrete, and human loss. The old quarrel between map and river is no longer a matter of interpretation; it has become a catastrophe. The question before India and Bangladesh is no longer only how much water each side receives. The question is whether the Teesta can continue to exist as a river.

For fifteen years, Bangladesh heard a familiar explanation for why the Teesta treaty remained unsigned. Delhi wanted it. Kolkata blocked it. Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee stood between diplomacy and water. On 4 May 2026, West Bengal voted for a new government. Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP candidate, defeated Mamata Banerjee in her own constituency. He took the oath of office as Chief Minister on 9 May. Mamata Banerjee’s veto is over. But Bangladesh should not mistake a cleared corridor for a flowing river. One blockade has moved; the Teesta has not returned.

The real crisis, the one that emerges in Teesta Parer Brittanto and remains unresolved in 2026, is not political. It is epistemological. Two ways of knowing the Teesta collide here. One measures the river by its flow on a given day at a specific station. Other measures it by legal documents, by historical precedent, by bureaucratic definition. Neither acknowledges what the novelist Debesh Roy illustrated: that the Teesta is alive. That it responds to forces no map can discipline or deflect. The Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) of 2023 revealed this in concrete form. The deeper truth emerged with it: any treaty signed without acknowledging the river’s fundamental crisis will merely varnish the fact of its decline. A percentage formula in which India would receive 42.5 per cent and Bangladesh would receive 37.5 per cent of the Teesta’s waters during the dry season will prove as fragile in the face of the next catastrophic release as the Teesta III dam proved in the last one.

In 1966, the International Law Association met in Helsinki and drafted the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers. These rules established a principle that has governed transboundary water diplomacy: each riparian state deserves ‘a reasonable and equitable share in the beneficial uses of the waters of an international drainage basin’.

The principle is sound. It rejects upstream tyranny. But it rests on an assumption: rivers are stable. Flow can be predicted from historical averages. Engineering can manage variability. The 2023 glacial lake outburst and the accelerating retreat of the Himalayan ice have shattered all three. The legal framework has evolved since 1966. The 1997 United Nations Watercourses Convention codified equitable and reasonable use, no significant harm, and prior notification as core principles of global water law. Separately, Bangladesh acceded on 20 June 2025 to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, becoming the first South Asian country to join that instrument.

Map of Gajoldoba and other dams and barrages on the Teesta River in India.


The 1992 Convention requires parties, especially riparian parties, to cooperate, exchange reasonably available data, consult in good faith, and share information on planned water uses or installations likely to cause transboundary impacts. The Helsinki Rules and later water conventions did real work. They put evidence before power, gave states a shared legal language, and made upstream coercion harder to defend. But their imagination stayed hydrological, not climatic. They trusted averages, stations, notifications, and good faith.

The Teesta now mocks that trust. Dams alter its pulse. Sudden releases turn treaty language into wet paper. The Teesta’s dry-season flow has collapsed. Reported figures trace the fall: the river carried nearly 6,500 cusecs in 1997, fell to 1,348 cusecs by 2006, and dwindled to somewhere between 700 and 300 cusecs in the following decade. The Gajoldoba Barrage in West Bengal diverts much of this water before it reaches Bangladesh. Upstream dams in Sikkim disturb the river’s timing, sediment flow, and release patterns. Climate change frays the rest. Any treaty signed without treating flow collapse as the central crisis is already a treaty about managing a river’s decline.

Across five northern districts—Rangpur, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Kurigram, and Gaibandha—millions depend on the Teesta for irrigation, fishing, and seasonal work. Bangladesh’s Teesta Barrage scheme needs at least 4,500 cusecs in the dry season to serve its command area. Recent reports put the flow near 400. That deficit does not live on a spreadsheet. Water insecurity lives in dry canals, empty nets, and the ledgers of char families who borrow against harvests that may never come.

When water arrives from upstream, unannounced and violent, farmers lose the year. They plant on hope. They harvest on prayer. Sudden releases flood fields. Riverbanks collapse. Chars disappear.

Uncertainty corrodes more than crops. It erodes sovereignty. When Bangladesh cannot set its own irrigation calendar, when India controls dry-season releases, sovereignty frays. Char families grasp what economists miss: a farmer who cannot predict water cannot keep children in school or daughters unmarried. Early marriage becomes economic.

Frustrated by fifteen years of delay, Bangladesh has pursued an alternative. A Chinese company, with Bangladeshi government support, designed the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project. Cost estimates approach US$1 billion. Project documents describe large-scale dredging, embankment construction, and river narrowing, though the precise specifications have shifted across reports.

What emerges from the available descriptions is a plan to discipline the river. Dredge the bed. Narrow the channels from a braided spread to a confined corridor. Reconstruct the banks. This is restoration only in language. In practice, it is ossification: an attempt to hold fixed what the monsoon, the glacier, and the chars naturally remake. Bangladesh has the right to pursue this. No country should wait forever beside a drying river. But engineering narrows choices. A narrowed river in a warming climate is a river that cannot absorb the next catastrophic release. The environmental assessment remains unpublished. The debt terms are not transparent. The specifications describe a river remade through human intention, not allowed to follow its own course. Here lies the contradiction.

In 2019, Bangladesh’s High Court declared the Teesta, along with all rivers, to be a living entity with legal personhood. The river has rights. The state is obliged to protect the river’s intrinsic dignity. Yet the restoration project treats the Teesta as a channel to engineer and control. This is Gayanath’s problem restated: the state claims authority to define the river through maps, documents, and blueprints. The river claims a different authority: the authority of life.

As Chief Minister, Suvendu Adhikari faces a choice. He can sign a treaty of the familiar kind: percentage formulas, data-sharing promises, and quarterly commission meetings that skirt the real crisis. Such a treaty will fail. The Teesta does not obey percentages. Data without enforcement is empty. Commissions cannot negotiate with climate or with glaciers collapsing at accelerating speed. A real treaty must begin with an acknowledgement: the Teesta’s character is changing. Floods intensify. Dry-season flows collapse. Neither state can manage this alone.

From that recognition flow three practical imperatives.

First: establish a minimum ecological flow as law. The Helsinki Rules call for consideration of environmental needs. The Berlin Rules give first priority to ‘vital human needs’ under Article 14(1), while Article 15(2) recognises water needed to assure ecological flows. A Teesta minimum flow should therefore be defended as ecological necessity and household survival, not merely as irrigation demand. It sustains the river’s character as a river. It sustains the people who depend on it. Set this flow at 4,500 cusecs, the amount Bangladesh requires for irrigation, and make it non-negotiable.

Second: install real-time data transmission and prior-warning protocols. The Gajoldoba Barrage in Jalpaiguri controls flow. India can release water or withhold it. Bangladesh can’t know what is being released or when. A treaty would require hourly data transmission to Bangladesh. It would establish protocols for sudden releases, preventing them from becoming instruments of coercion. Independent observers would verify compliance.

Once a vibrant waterway, the Teesta has been reduced to narrow channels and vast sandbars. Photo: Star


Third: build climate-sensitive review mechanisms. The monsoon is intensifying, glacial retreat is accelerating, and extreme events are becoming normal. A treaty written on 20th-century hydrology will fail within five years. The agreement must include annual review and event-triggered renegotiation. Any mega-project—Chinese, Indian, or otherwise—must undergo an independent environmental assessment before construction begins. If it narrows the Teesta, reduces sediment flow, or intensifies flood risk, the project must be rejected or redesigned.

Suvendu Adhikari’s victory removes a longstanding political obstacle. For the first time in fifteen years, Delhi and Kolkata may speak with one voice on the Teesta. Yet the removal of one blockade is not the breakthrough Bangladesh imagines. The real obstacle is not Mamata Banerjee. The real obstacle is that neither government has acknowledged what the crisis actually is: the Teesta is not a resource to divide. It is a living system that must be protected. Any treaty that ignores this reality, that treats the river as a commodity rather than a living entity with rights, is merely a framework for managing decline.

Gayanath refused the surveyor’s map because the Teesta had already moved beyond it. Decades later, the same error still governs diplomacy: officials divide a river on paper while dams, glacier melt, and dry-season scarcity remake it on the ground. Kolkata, Delhi, and Dhaka now face a narrower choice than they imagine. A treaty can protect the Teesta as a living system, or it can merely record its decline. If the second path is chosen, the next survey will find a river still recognised in law, but missing from the landscape.

Galib Mahmud Pasha is a civil servant with the Government of Bangladesh and is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Environment at the Australian National University. His research focuses on policy, governance, migration, and environmental justice in South and Southeast Asia.​