Bangladesh, India talk flood management as Sylhet reels under water

It’s a sheer coincidence but probably it couldn’t have been any better timed.

Bangladesh and India hold an important bilateral meeting where the two South Asian neighbors’ agenda include, among other things, the burning issue of flood management. 

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen left Dhaka for Delhi on Saturday to attend the seventh session of the foreign minister-level Indo-Bangla Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) meeting at a time when the northeastern regions of both Bangladesh and India are reeling under floodwaters. 

Bangladesh’s Sylhet and Sunamganj, in particular, are experiencing one of their worst deluges in decades thanks to record downpours in Meghalaya’s Cherrapunjee.  

Having held the previous edition virtually in 2020, today’s one will be the first in-person JCC meeting convened since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and would be co-chaired by Momen and his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar. The JCC meeting was scheduled for May 30 in Guwahati, Assam, but was later rescheduled for today (June 19) in New Delhi.  

On the eve of today’s JCC meet, an Indian External Affairs Ministry statement reads: "The JCC will review the entire gamut of bilateral relations, including cooperation in the wake of Covid-19, border management and security, trade and investment, connectivity, energy, water resources, development partnership d regional and multilateral issues."

Meeting’s significance against backdrop of Sylhet flood

When experts are united in concluding that the current spate of flooding is largely caused by heavy intensity of rainfall (too much rain in too few days), it cannot be denied that riverbed elevation at the source point of the Surma-Kushiyara river system has aggravated the situation.

Rising in the hill country of Manipur, the Barak, one of Northeast India’s major rivers, flows through Mizoram and Assam before entering Bangladesh, where it forks into the Surma and Kushiyara rivers.

Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune

Over the years a lack of excavation has silted up the Barak as it enters through Amolshid in Sylhet’s Zakiganj. During the flash floods last month, a big stretch of the protection embankment at the confluence of the Barak-Surma and Kushiyara caved in, inundating village after village in several Sylhet upazilas. 

Bangladesh has long been insistent on India’s cooperation in its Upper Surma-Kushiyara Project, which essentially would help reduce the curse of devastating high intensity floods in the greater Sylhet region.  

Talking to journalists in Dhaka recently, Foreign Minister Momen stressed the need for joint river management to improve the life and livelihood of the people in the river basins and for weather forecast data sharing on floods, citing the recent heavy flooding in Sylhet region following rains in Assam and Meghalaya.

Foreign office sources say that Dhaka essentially wants India to cooperate in implementing the Upper Surma-Kushiyara project to increase the rivers' navigability through dredging and excavation.

The issue was raised by Bangladesh at  the last JCC meeting too. The joint statement issued after the 6th JCC meeting reads: “Foreign Minister [of Bangladesh] requested the cooperation of the Indian side for the implementation of Bangladesh’s Upper Surma-Kushiyara project. The Indian side noted that the feasibility report was under examination.”

Teesta River in Lalmonirhat's Hatibanda upazila Bangla Tribune

This time round, with the best parts of the Sylhet-Sunamganj region going under the floodwaters, Bangladesh is eagerly waiting to know from India how the latter plans to cooperate in dredging the elevated beds of the transboundary rivers.  

Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) officials say if rivers are dredged both upstream and also in the Sylhet-Sunamganj part, it would help the rivers carry more rainwater without inundating many towns and villages on both their banks. They say siltation-induced erosion also goes against Bangladesh’s territorial interest as the country loses lands on the borderline. 

When India and Bangladesh held a water resources meeting at the secretary-level in March this year, the Bangladesh side strongly emphasized the immediate need for excavating the Surma-Kushiyara intake channel – Rahimpur Khal, which is awaiting the Indian greenlight.

Teesta And Beyond

The agenda for today’s meeting also includes – most importantly – Bangladesh’s continuous insistence on concluding a long pending Teesta water sharing deal, which fell through at the last moment of a possible agreement signing over a decade ago. Delhi had then assigned Kolkata’s resistance as a reason for not being able to strike the deal. The Teesta’s flow to Bangladesh has fallen drastically ever since India harnessed the river’s waters for hydropower and irrigation and built the Gojaldoba barrage.

Other than the Teesta, Bangladesh and India also between them have the pending tasks of reaching agreements on sharing the waters of six other rivers – Manu, Muhuri, Khowai, Gumti, Dharla and Dudhkumar. The 30-year Ganges Water Sharing Treaty will be expiring in a few years’ time too.

It is expected that at today’s Delhi meet, Bangladesh will once again draw India’s attention to the issue of a lifting of an anti-dumping duty on Bangladesh jute goods. Both sides will seek to further strengthen their existing cooperation in energy, economy and connectivity.