INDIA so far failed to provide to Bangladesh comprehensive data on its Tipaimukh Dam. India also failed to assure many of its own citizens in north-east India as well as Bangladesh that the controversial dam would do them no harm. When did India complete its study? Why does India refuse to share the study report with Bangladesh? If the project would benefit both Bangladesh and India, why India started its construction without the approval of Bangladesh? If India had good intentions, how could its High Commissioner in Bangladesh make such arrogant remark, "No international law can stop Tipai Dam?"
The Indian High Commissioner's more recent comments on Bangladeshi experts were uncalled for, indecorous, undiplomatic and arrogant too.
India must understand that the people of Bangladesh have the right to know about the Tipaimukh Dam.
The government of Bangladesh should constitute a national and international team consisting of geologists, engineers, biologists, agricultural scientists, environmentalists, lawyers and economists to examine the Tipaimukh project.
There are many unanswered questions about the adverse impacts of the Tipaimukh dam on Bangladesh. Will India solve these problems? What resources will India provide Bangladesh to offset the adverse effects that people of Bangladesh would suffer in the Kushiyara, Surma and Meghna basins. Topaimukh will cause untold environmental disasters in Bangladesh. The problems, threatening the existence of Bangladesh, need to be scrutinised by national experts. Water Resources Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen made contradictory and incoherent remarks on the issue.
Bangladesh cannot allow the construction of the Tipaimukh Dam without a thorough review of the risks and the potential of the dam to devastate the environment of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh and India should publish their findings on the project after joint visits to the site. The project must be examined from the perspectives of geo-political, socio-economic, food production and demographic impact in the affected regions of Bangladesh.
The government should share all it knows with the opposition. The opposition parties in Bangladesh should independently analyse the Tipaimukh project based on correct data. They should also share their findings with the government. The people of Bangladesh will appreciate such positive steps. The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, recently said that her government would not approve the construction of the Tipaimukh Dam against the national interest of Bangladesh.
Therefore, the opposition parties should trust and extend her support in handling the issue. They should disagree with the government only if it fails to protect the interests of Bangladesh.
How can the people of Bangladesh trust that India's Tipaimukh Dam will not do any harm to them when they have been suffering numerous environmental disasters for the last 35 years due to the barrages, in the upstreams of the Ganges and the Teesta, built by India? What reason the people of Bangladesh have to believe that this dam would be different?
Why India should not help or compensate Bangladesh to solve these problems created by India? India's construction of dams or barrages on the common rivers one after the other violates international law regarding common rivers, the norms of good neighbourliness and threatens the livelihood of the people of Bangladesh. India should be well aware of the environmental disasters in Bangladesh caused by Farakka, Teesta and other barrages built by India.
India's lack of sensitivity to the neighbours does not speak of friendly act by a friendly country. India should not be insensitive to the environmental and the negative consequences of the Tipaimukh Dam on lower riparian Bangladesh. (A P.G. environmental geologist, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Adjunct Faculty-Cowley County Community College, Team Leader-WATC International Arsenic, Water, Ecosystem and Environment Research Center, Wichita, Kansas, USA, the writer can be reached at
No comments:
Post a Comment