Indo-Bangla Water Issue To Be Resolved By Dec 31

Water resources minister Janeshwar Mishra and his Bangladesh counterpart Abdur Razzak could not hammer out a final solution in their two-day talks which concluded on Wednesday, but the sources said both sides were committed to meeting the December deadline set by external affairs minister I K Gujral during his visit to Dhaka a couple of months ago.

The two sides have, however, agreed that any future agreement on the water issue will be jointly monitored, the sources said.

The Bangladeshis are also said to have been encouraged by the fact that India continues to talk about the same quantity and the same patterns of water from the January-May period as was available nearly twenty years ago, the sources added.

 

We reiterated our understanding of the political compulsions they face, a source said, adding that two crucial visits in November would help make the picture clearer : Bangladesh foreign minister Abdus Samad Azad is visiting India in the first half of November while West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu will go to Dhaka in the second half of the month.

Basus visit is seen as crucial since West Bengal is the largest consumer of Ganga water before the river reaches Bangladesh. Any agreement in the past has not taken off because Calcutta has refused to give any commitments on water usage in the lean season.

Officials and foreign policy analysts have long said that Basu holds the key to an issue that has effectively stunted the bilateral relationship.

Only if Jyoti Basu agrees that West Bengal will not utilise any water along the feeder canal in the lean season can there be any agreement, one analyst said.

He added that it was perhaps fortunate for both countries that Basus political party was an active player in the government at the Centre. This raises the stakes for Basu and increases his responsibility in resolving the issue, another analyst said.

Ministry sources admitted that India would need to look at all the periods of the lean season before concluding an agreement with Bangladesh.

Reports in the Bangladeshi press before Razzaks visit quoted some think-tanks and influential academics as saying that Dhaka would not be averse to a realistic solution with India, especially one that was carried out in good faith.

One such solution mentioned a 50:50 sharing of the water with India.

It may be recalled that the 1977 agreement had talked in 67:33 percentage terms, with the larger amount going to Bangladesh.

An Indian analyst said while Dhaka would officially follow the line that New Delhi must give more than what the old pact provided, it might be willing to settle for less in reality.