Water management experts have disparaged as “a drop in the ocean” an agreement between Bangladesh and India to share water from the Kushiara River, a minor waterway out of the 54 that flows between both countries.
In a recent visit to India, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina signed a memorandum of understanding with her Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, in which both governments agreed to withdraw the equivalent of 4.3 cubic meters (153 cubic feet) per second of water from the Kushiara during the off-monsoon season from November to May.
“Bangladesh will irrigate 5,000 hectares [12,400 acres] of arable land with this water,” said Malik Fida A. Khan, a member of the Joint Rivers Commission (JRC), a technical body that advises the Bangladesh government on the management of transboundary rivers and water.
Transboundary water experts in Bangladesh, however, say the new agreement is a “drop in the ocean.” They expressed frustration that India, sitting upriver, is unwilling to consider the interests of downstream Bangladesh when it comes to sharing water from the major rivers flowing from the Himalayas down to the Bay of Bengal.
Bangladesh is an active delta formed by sediments carried through the rivers flowing from the Himalayas. The two neighboring countries share at least 54 such rivers, according to the JRC, the most prominent among them being the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. Agriculture, navigation, inland fisheries, and keeping saltwater intrusion at bay are all heavily dependent on the flow of water of these rivers.
