Teesta water sharing: Experts for UN intervention

Bangladesh government should appeal to the United Nations to solve the Teesta river water sharing issue since there has been no progress in signing the deal bilaterally, water and environmental experts suggested today.

The experts expressed their concern on the issue at a roundtable discussion at the Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka this morning.

“The UN should intervene to solve the pending problem as the Teesta water sharing agreement has not yet seen any progress bilaterally,” they said.

The experts came up with the demand as Bangladesh and India are yet to sign the agreement of Teesta water sharing.

International Farakka Committee (IFC) Bangladesh President Jashim Uddin Khan and IFC coordinator Mustafa Kamal placed their statements at the programme.

The Teesta river, which has its origin in Sikkim, flows through the northern part of West Bengal in India before entering Bangladesh and joining the Brahmaputra river.

The Teesta agreement was expected to be signed during the visit of the then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to Dhaka in 2011. But it could not be singed because of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s opposition to the water-sharing deal.

Mamata came on a three-day visit to Dhaka on the occasion of International Mother Language Day on February 21. And this was her first visit to Bangladesh since taking office in 2011.

During her three-day visit, she said the much-talked issue would be resolved soon through protection of mutual interest of both Bangladesh and West Bengal.

On November 26, 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi assures his Bangladeshi counterpart Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina when they met on the sidelines of Saarc Summit in Kathmandu.

India government was working vigorously to seal deals on Teesta River Water Sharing Agreement and Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh to boost bilateral relation between the two countries, Modi told Hasina during the meeting.