Officials of Bangladesh and India have finalised a new location in Tripura to set up an “intake well” to utilize the Feni river water for drinking and irrigation projects in a southern town in the Indian state.
The water will be supplied to those living in Sabroom, a southern town of Tripura that shares a border with Bangladesh.
In this regard, members of the India-Bangladesh Joint Technical Committee on Tuesday visited Gangfira and Navinpara areas on the banks of the Feni river in Sabroom.
Ramzan Ali Pramanik, the chief engineer (civil) of the Bangladesh Water Development Board, led a 12-member Bangladesh delegation which is part of the joint bilateral body.
Meanwhile, a 10-strong Indian team was led by South Tripura District Magistrate Saju Waheed, who said the Indian government has taken two major projects for Tripura which are very essential for people living in the bordering town on the bank of the river Feni.
He said in a bid to provide clean drinking water to the entire area in the Sabroom town, an intake well on the riverside will be installed.
“The present well is now defunct but India and Bangladesh have agreed to relocate the well so that we can supply uninterrupted drinking water to the bordering town. We have finalized the place where the intake well will be set up and in the coming weeks works in this direction shall start”, Waheed told reporters.
“The delegation of both the countries finalized the location. The design for the intake well was handed over to Bangladesh officials for approval and once it's done, the construction work of the intake well will begin,” the Indian official added.
“The officials also raised concerns about the pending work on river bank protection. However, this work will be done once permission is granted from the Tripura government and Border Security Force. It was a fruitful meeting between two countries and I hope that the long-pending issue will get resolved as soon as possible,” he added.
Earlier on February 18, the same delegations of India and Bangladesh inspected the drinking water and irrigation projects along the river.
The joint committee then also visited the proposed site of the intake well, to be constructed by India to draw 1.62 cusecs of water from the river at the Indo-Bangladesh international border.
The engineering aspects of the projects were discussed between the representatives of the two countries.
Prior to that, the district magistrate informed that collecting water from the Feni river at Sabroom 22 pumps shall be used for irrigation and pumps with problems shall be solved while the construction work of the water treatment plant at Anand Para in Sabroom would be resumed.
During this meeting and inspection, Border Guards of Bangladesh (BGB) and Border Security Force (BSF) were present with the officials of both sides.
In October 2019, both countries signed a memorandum of understanding allowing India to withdraw 1.62 cubic feet per second of water from the Feni river which is nearly 52 liters per second and about 4.5 million liters per day.
Authorities said that the water that is being supplied to meet the water crisis in Sabroom for humanitarian reasons is only 0.23% of the total water in the dry season.
