India’s river-linking worrying, says Bangladesh watchdog

A parliamentary panel has expressed concern over India’s funding its river-linking project.

The Parliamentary Committee on the Ministry of Water Resources also decided at a meeting on Wednesday to seek details of the project from India.

After the meeting, committee Chairman Ramesh Chandra Sen told reporters: “Allocation of fund afresh for the project is a matter of concern for us. We’ll ask the water resources ministry to gather information from India through the foreign ministry.”

The new BJP government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on July 10 allocated 1 billion rupees in his maiden budget for the project initiated by the previous BJP-led NDA government, headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in 1998.

The succeeding Congress-led UPA government could not carry the project forward due to stiff opposition from environmentalist groups, but the Supreme Court, in Feb, 2012, ruled that the government could proceed.

The project is aimed at diverting the waters of some of the common rivers to India’s drought-hit regions by linking them with canals.

Dhaka fears such diversions will affect the flow of the rivers in Bangladesh.

While speaking to reporters, Sen expressed the committee’s dissatisfaction with the progress of river-dredging projects.

He said members of the committee had been to various projects undertaken by the Water Development Board in Kushtia, Jessore, Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat and found they were not being ‘properly’ implemented.

“The work could not be done properly because of the violent political programmes of BNP and Jamaat (-e-Islami)'” the committee chief said.

He also cited financial constraints, adding that the committee had advised the completion of the more important projects first.

The committee has suggested construction of 20 kilometres embankments.

Sen said: “Water flow from India increases during the monsoon. That’s why we need to construct 40 kilometres of protective walls. Construction of 20 kilometres has been suggested this year.”