Between today and December 12, a narrow three-month window remains for Bangladesh and India to walk the talk on renegotiating and renewing the historic Ganges Water Sharing Treaty. Signed in New Delhi on December 12, 1996, by then Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart HD Deve Gowda, the milestone 30-year agreement is set to expire at the end of this year.
The Ganges river system -- known as the Padma in Bangladesh -- is a vital lifeline for millions of people, with its basin covering more than a third of Bangladesh’s total land area.
Consequently, there has never been a more urgent need for Bangladesh to ensure that the treaty does not lapse. Anyone in Bangladesh understands how crucial this water is to local livelihoods and how damaging a diplomatic void could be if the 1996 treaty expires without a consensus on renewal or a fresh framework.
While I prefer not to be a naysayer, we are rapidly approaching the deadline with very little visible bilateral discussion. The public is largely unaware of any progress, save for a few stray news reports about technical-level talks and hydrological data sharing.
As someone who has followed Bangladesh-India water negotiations for more than two decades, I find the current atmosphere noticeably lacking in urgency and expediency. With the clock ticking down, the absence of high-level water diplomacy and ministerial-level Joint Rivers Commission (JRC) discussions raises genuine concerns that we might end the year without a fresh deal. I would be glad to be proved wrong.
This quietude stands in stark contrast to the water negotiations in the years immediately after the turn of the 21st century. In the early and mid-2000s, I had the opportunity to observe JRC meetings closely from the sidelines. I watched then Bangladesh Water Resources Minister Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, now the House Speaker, and his Indian counterpart, Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, engage in fierce but constructive debates.
During the 36th JRC meeting in Dhaka in September 2005, they debated over the Teesta water-sharing formula. Ahmad raised Bangladesh’s genuine concerns about the diversion of Teesta water in the upper riparian region of West Bengal and India’s construction of barrages at Fulertal and Gazoldoba, while Dasmunsi vigorously defended India’s position.
Dasmunsi, a seasoned Congress politician serving in Manmohan Singh’s Union cabinet, was a Bengali born in the Dinajpur region of pre-partition India. I still fondly recall receiving a surprise letter from him in October, 2005, about a month after his visit to Dhaka. In the letter, he was full of praise for the way we gave him a hard time in Dhaka by shooting a barrage of difficult questions.
The beauty of the ministerial talks and subsequent press briefings back then was the complete absence of hard feelings; both sides acknowledged and appreciated each other’s genuine constraints, speaking to the press in a transparent manner without evading even the toughest questions.
Looking back, any water expert in India or Bangladesh can see how pragmatic it was for Bangladesh to sound the alarm over the Teesta in the mid-2000s. We later witnessed how a near-deal in 2011 fell flat because West Bengal’s then chief minister Mamata Banerjee refused to sign an agreement she felt would leave her own state thirsty.
Today, as we push for a timely deal on the Ganges to avoid a legal vacuum, another Indian state has raised its voice. Sanjay Kumar Jha, a prominent Rajya Sabha member representing Bihar, recently called on the Indian government not to renew the Ganges treaty, claiming it has negatively affected his state.
This plea carries significant political weight: Jha was Bihar’s water resources minister as recently as 2024 and currently serves as the national working president of the Janata Dal (United), making him the de facto second-in-command to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The response from New Delhi was swift. India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar wrote to Jha, assuring him that India would take Bihar’s interests into consideration when deciding on the renewal of the 1996 treaty. While domestic and interstate stakes are India’s internal affair, Bangladesh must take note. We cannot afford to become collateral damage to India’s internal political dynamics. If the ghost of the stalled Teesta deal proves anything, it is that internal roadblocks matter: Back then, it was West Bengal; this time, it could very well be Bihar.
Bangladesh needs to take a cue from the proactive approach of Hafiz Uddin Ahmad two decades ago. Under his stewardship, water talks were conducted in a way that took the wider public into confidence. Whatever discussions are happening today are largely in camera, with very little filtering through to the press.
By contrast, the 35th JRC meeting in New Delhi in late 2003 and the 36th meeting in Dhaka were held under an intense media spotlight. At post-talk press conferences, ministers, delegates, and water experts routinely shared outcomes with reporters, ensuring the general public remained informed. Our delegates debated at length, tackling areas of cooperation alongside major concerns such as India’s river inter-linking project, barrages, and upstream diversions at Tipaimukh, Fulertal, and Gazoldoba.
Beyond the immediate issue of the Ganges, both nations must step up political and ministerial engagement to revive the lost momentum of water diplomacy. If you ask when the two countries’ water ministers last held JRC talks, it is difficult to give an instant answer. Following those 35th and 36th ministerial meetings two decades ago, Bangladesh and India have managed to hold only two more ministerial-level assemblies. This speaks volumes about the gradual disengagement.
In fact, the last time the respective water ministers sat down for a formal JRC meeting was in 2022 -- an event that itself broke a 12-year hiatus. While high-level technical and secretary-level meetings have continued, including the 90th routine technical JRC meeting in May 2026, a fresh ministerial-level assembly has yet to be convened.
The discussion must expand beyond the Ganges alone. Bangladesh needs to swiftly revive the discourse from where former water minister Hafiz Uddin Ahmad left off when he raised serious concerns about India’s inter-linking of rivers (ILR) program. If upstream waters from shared Bangladesh-India rivers are diverted under the ILR project, Bangladesh will face severe water constraints in the foreseeable future.
The scale of this threat was recently underscored by official statements. In a written parliamentary reply last month, India’s Minister of State for Water Resources Raj Bhushan Choudhary said India has formulated a National Perspective Plan for inter-basin water transfer.
Under the plan, 30 ILR projects have been identified, comprising 16 link projects under the Peninsular component and 14 under the Himalayan component. While most of these projects remain at various pre-implementation stages, the Ken-Betwa Link Project has already entered the implementation phase, with a massive budgetary outlay of nearly 45,000 crore Indian rupees.
The project aims to divert 591 million cubic metres of surplus water from the Ken River basin to the water-deficit Betwa basin. Because the Ken flows north into the Yamuna -- the largest tributary of the Ganges -- such large-scale upstream water withdrawal could potentially reduce the volume of water entering the mainstream Ganges.
The consequences extend beyond simple hydrology. A 2023 study published in Nature Communications by researchers at IIT Bombay found that large-scale river interlinking in India alters crucial land-atmosphere feedback loops, potentially reducing summer monsoon rainfall by up to 12% in already water-stressed regions.
Ultimately, these upstream diversions within the Ganga basin could drastically reduce the seasonal flow of the Padma, triggering severe agricultural losses and ecological distress.
The Ganges treaty stands as a testament to the political will that has allowed these two co-riparian South Asian nations to share waters peacefully for three decades. We should be building on this legacy rather than letting it slip away.
Bangladesh and India share 54 common rivers, yet binding instruments, such as agreements or memorandums of understanding (MoUs) exist for only three: The Ganges, the Feni and the Kushiyara. The 2019 Feni River MoU permits India to withdraw a minor 1.82 cusecs strictly for drinking water in Sabroom town, Tripura. The 2022 Kushiyara MoU allows Bangladesh to withdraw 153 cusecs for dry-season irrigation.
Meanwhile, the long-anticipated Teesta treaty, drafted in 2011, remains frozen by West Bengal’s political opposition, while active water-sharing frameworks for seven other priority rivers -- the Manu, Muhuri, Khowai, Gumti, Dharla, Dudhkumar, and Ichamati -- have failed to materialize.
Time is running out. Bangladesh and India must urgently upgrade their diplomatic engagement, bringing ministers back to the table to secure not just the Ganges but the future of the Teesta and the rest of our shared river basins.
Reaz Ahmad is Editor, Dhaka Tribune.
