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| Monday, 4 August 2003 |
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B'desh to protest Indian plan to link rivers DHAKA, Sunday (AFP) Bangladesh will lobby India to stop a proposed multibillion-dollar project to connect 37 of its rivers which Dhaka says could threaten life in this country at the mouth of India's major waterways, a minister said. "Definitely we will lodge a protest with New Delhi against its proposed plan," Water Resources Minister Hafizuddin Ahmed told a strategy meeting ahead of a global symposium on water to be held in Sweden. Ahmed, who said India has not officially informed Bangladesh of the plan, said Dhaka "will also ask donors not to fund" the project. "Dhaka would do everything possible to prevent India from implementing its proposed plan for interlinking its river basins, eventually affecting the livelihood and environment of lower riparian Bangladesh," said Ahmed, quoted by the official BSS news agency. India has for decades mulled the ambitious plan to connect 37 of its rivers with canals to bring more water to drier areas. But the project has been repeatedly delayed due to the prohibitive cost. However, an Indian government panel in March pledged to have a report on the river-linking completed by 2006. The panel said that if the plan is judged ecologically and financially sound, the target date to complete the massive project should be 2016. But Bangladeshi experts fear the project would have serious repercussions here as major rivers flowing down from India, particularly the Brahmaputra, are key sources of freshwater. Both India and Bangladesh are ravaged by chronic flooding in the monsoon season that kills hundreds each year. Bangladesh, criss-crossed by more than 230 rivers, ironically also suffers from desertification in the northwest which has been blamed on India taking water from the Ganges. The neighbours signed a landmark 30-year treaty in 1997 on sharing the Ganges' water, but Bangladesh complains that problems remain. |
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