Dhaka proposed Tipaimukh dam: ex-FM

Dhaka, Jan 20 (bdnews24.com)--Former foreign minister Anisul Islam Mahmud has said it was Bangladesh that proposed the controversial Tipaimukh dam in 1988 to control flooding.

Speaking at a discussion meeting on prime minister Sheikh Hasina's India visit, the Jatiya Party MP said the hydro-electric dam may not reduce Bangladesh's water availability in the downstream.

Mahmud, who served for seven years as foreign and water resources ministers under General H M Ershad's nine-year rule starting in 1982, however, opposed water diversion by India in Phulertala, down the Tipaimukh point.

"It is Bangladesh which demanded the Tipaimukh dam in 1988. I take full responsibility of this statement," Mahmud told Wednesday at a discussion meeting jointly organised by the Independent newspaper and the Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies at BEL tower in Dhanmondi.

He comment backs former Indian high commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty who in September last year said that the damming of the Barak River in the northeastern India was demanded by Bangladesh.

Mahmud said the Tipaimukh dam may contribute to controlling flood in downstream in Bangladesh.

"Of course, we oppose the barrage in Phulertala, in Tapaimukh's down," he said.

"We oppose any water diversion by India... Tipaimukh dam is a power generation project," he said.

Foreign minister Dipu Moni, chief guest at the meeting, supplemented Mahmud's comment, saying the then government at the meeting (14th) of the Joint Rivers Commission in 1978 agreed with India for carrying out a joint study on construction of a water storage in Bangladesh's upstream.

The dam was aimed at controling flood in the Sylhet region and in India.

Main opposition BNP's de facto founder Major Gen Ziaur Rahman was in power in 1978.

BNP is opposing the construction of the dam since the Awami League took office on Jan 6 last year.

Environmentalists both in India and Bangladesh are vehemently opposed to building the Tipaimukh dam over Barak which enters into Bangladesh as two rivers--Surma and Kushiara.

Hundreds of canals and major rivers in the greater Sylhet region are totally dependent on the Surma's water flows and the rivers and canals are lifeline for millions of people in Sylhet area.

A delegation of Bangladesh parliament, at the invitation of the Indian government, on July 29 last year went to India to see the Tipaimukh construction site.

The parliamentary team on their return told journalists that the dam did not exist and the Indian government had assured them of not doing anything which would hurt Bangladesh in the downstream.

Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh during Hasina's recent visit to India assured her that his country would never take any step on the proposed dam that would adversely affect Bangladesh.

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