Near the Teesta bridge in the northern district of Lalmonirhat, a boat is tied up to a pole where the river is dried up, giving rise to a shoal. People of Bangladesh keep waiting for the Indo-Bangla Teesta deal, which would ensure proper flow of water in the river on this side. The photo was taken in March this year.
Four years ago, when Bangladesh and India reached a consensus on sharing the Teesta river water, people built their hopes up for an increased flow in the shared river.
But what they saw in reality dashed their hopes to the ground — the river was only getting leaner during the dry season.
With no further headway in the much-needed deal, the lifeline for millions of people of the country’s northern region was dying.
“The Teesta faced the worst ever situation in the last lean period. The entire river went dry this year,” said Feroze, convener of Teesta Rakkha Sangram Committee, an organisation working to realise due share of the trans-boundary river.
“Never before in my lifetime did I witness anything as such,” said Feroze, who hailed from Purba Kachua village of Gangachara upazila in Rangpur.
A water flow chart obtained from Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission (JRC) also reflects his account.
The JRC chart shows Bangladesh received only 232 cusecs (cubic feet per second) of Teesta water on March 22, the lowest in history.
The average flow of the Teesta in the last 10 days of March, the peak of the lean period, dropped to 315 cusecs in 2015 from 550 cusecs during the same period in 2014. It was 2,950 cusecs in 2013 and 3,506 cusecs in 2012.
Before the Gazoldoba barrage in India’s West Bengal was built, the average flow of the river during the last 10 days of March was 6,710 cusecs between 1973 and 1985.
The water flow statistics shows the water has started reducing in Bangladesh part of the river since the deal was finalised during former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh’s Dhaka tour in September 2011.
However, recent reports published in the Indian media suggest the Modi government is trying to explore the possibility of having a revised Teesta treaty signed.
The Indian newspapers also published different formulas, one of which suggests 46:46 percent sharing of the water between the two countries.
Out of its share, West Bengal, under the revised formula, has to part with 21 percent of water at Gazoldoba in North Bengal, while another 25 percent would be added through regeneration by the time it would reach Dalia barrage.
The Indian media reports also say the federal Indian government is offering financial assistance to West Bengal for developing irrigational infrastructure in the state to use the Teesta water, particularly during dry season, in a bid to pursue Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Sources point out that even now the state can only use 25 percent of the Teesta waters due to lack of irrigational infrastructure.
However, officials in Bangladesh claim they do not have any clue to any new formulas about the Teesta deal.
“The deal has already been finalised four years ago. Now we are just waiting for the deal to be signed,” said a top official from the Bangladesh who is involved in the process.
“Now India is solving its internal problems,” added the official asking not to be identified.
Four years ago, it was finalised that Bangladesh and India would share the water of the Gazoldoba point equally after keeping a certain portion for the river which could not be signed due to opposition from Mamata.
As the Teesta gets completely dry during lean period, people like boatmen, fishermen and others dependent on the river have meanwhile been forced to change their profession. Farmers are also struggling hard to grow crops, the official said.
Abdus Samad, 50, a boatman of Char Rajpur village in Lalmonirhat sadar, said at least 3,000 boatmen had become unemployed during winter. Boatmen had been facing such a crisis for last few years, he added.
“Two decades ago when water was abundant in the river round the year, we were very busy carrying people and goods from one place to another,” he said, adding, many boatmen had already quit.
Jitin Chandra Das, 65, a fisherman by ancestral choice, of Dashpara village at Aditmari upazila said around 5,000 fishermen like him in 24 villages in the district faced livelihood crisis in winter as they could not catch fish in the river.
“The fishermen are changing their ancestral job day by day,” he added.
Farmer Nizam Uddin, 55, of Char Gokunda village in Lalmonirhat sadar said they faced severe irrigational problems due to shortage of water during lean period.
“We cannot cultivate our land for producing crops as the river dries up this time,” he added.
The underground water level also went down during winter, making it very difficult for them to pump underground water into the fields, he said.
According to Agriculture Extension Department (AED) officials in Lalmonirhat, around 30,000 acres of land in 90 char and river shoal villages in the district cannot grow paddy or other crops during lean period.
In addition to this, the river without water puts another impact on the movement of char people as they find it hard to walk on miles of sandy land.
Sathi Akhter, 14, of Char Dawabari at Hatibandha upazila, also a student of class nine at Parulia High School, said she did not go to school every day in fear of walking two miles on the sand.
“But I attend my classes every day during monsoon as I get boat service then,” she said.
Sabuj Khandaker, general secretary of Teesta Putra, a local platform for movement to save the river in Lalmonirhat, said the about-three-kilometre-wide river in the monsoon turned into a 20-to-30-foot-wide canal in winter.
“If we can save our Teesta, we can save our agriculture and also save the livelihood of more than one lakh people living in the shoal areas,” he said.
Source: The Daily Star
