Kamran Reza Chowdhury
bdnews24.com Senior Correspondent
Dhaka, March 12 (bdnews24.com)— In addition to the Teesta's water share, Bangladesh will talk with India also on dredging of the Surma River at the Joint Rivers Commission meeting starting Thursday in New Delhi, a top official has said.
A 16-strong Bangladesh delegation, headed by water resources minister Ramesh Chandra Sen, reached New Delhi on Wednesday to attend the 37th ministerial-level meeting of the JRC.
Water Development Board officials say water flows in the Surma river comes down to almost nothing in the dry season after 1990s as a big shoal has emerged in the no-man's land in Amalshid where Indian Barak Iiver enters Bangladesh into two rivers—Surma and Kushiara.
They say removal of the shoal by dredging has not got the importance it deserved.
"We will discuss the Teesta's water sharing. Also, we will raise this issue of Surma's dredging at the JRC meeting," water resources secretary Shaikh Wahid-uz-Zaaman, one of the delegation members, told bdnews24.com on Tuesday.
WDB's superintendent engineer (in Sylhet) Syed Afsan Ali told bdnews24.com on Monday that if the shoal was removed, more water in the Surma will be available.
"It should be dredged," he said.
The board officials said they could not go for the dredging as the shoal is in the no-man's land.
"It is up to the JRC to settle this," a top official of the board told bdnews24.com preferring anonymity.
"Without the JRC's approval, we cannot go for dredging in the border," he said.
The WDB records say water availability in the Surma river comes down drastically in the dry season: from November to March.
Officials say the river's highest flow in July-August reaches about 1,500 cumec per second, but it falls to about five to six cumec per second in March or April every year.
In 2008, the Surma's highest and lowest flow figures for the dry season were recorded in March. The lowest flow was 6.05 cumec per second while the highest was just 15 cumec per second. The highest flow in the rainy season the same year was 1456 cumec per second on July 21.
The highest flow in the dry season was just 4.6 cumec per second and the lowest 4.22 cumec per second. The river's highest and lowest flows figures in the 2007 rainy season were recorded in August as 962 cumec per second and 670 cumec per second respectively.
Foreign ministry sources say Bangladesh may raise the issue at the JRC meeting as Dhaka has given consent to dredging the Icchamati river, which has been causing flood in the India's West Bengal due to emergence of a 20- kilometre shoal.
The JRC's secretary-level meeting in January had agreed on dredging the Ichhamati river.
The Icchamati's dredging will start soon, according to the ministry sources.
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