Kamran Reza Chowdhury
bdnews24.com senior correspondent

Dhaka, Nov 21 (bdnews24.com)—Foreign minister Dipu Moni has said Bangladesh cannot hand over a draft agreement on sharing Teesta waters with India unless a Joint Rivers Commission meeting takes place.

A senior foreign ministry official has told bdnews24.com that the meeting of the Joint Rivers Commission must itself follow technical talks between water experts of both sides.

Bangladesh has proposed holding the technical meeting from Dec 3-6, but India is yet to respond to the proposal, he said.

He said his ministry also sent a letter to India to hold the JRC meeting in Delhi "as soon as possible" ahead of prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Delhi visit from Dec 19-21.

Foreign minister Dipu Moni told bdnews24.com Saturday, "We will hand over the draft of an agreement on Teesta water sharing to India if we can hold the meeting of the Joint Rivers Commission before the prime minister`s visit."

"The JRC must sit first to finalise the provisions and terms of the agreement," she said.

Dipu Moni has been pressing hard for a deal on Teesta waters, on which Bangladesh's largest irrigation project is dependent.

She said her ministry was trying to get a date from India for the JRC meeting as the commission had failed to hold any talks for the last six years.

Officials of Bangladesh's Water Development Board and its Indian counterpart sit every year in technical talks on water resources and water related issues between the two countries.

"Bangladesh has proposed the next technical level talks on water resources be held between Dec 3-Dec 6. We are yet to get response from Indian authorities on that," a foreign ministry spokesperson told bdnews24.com.

"The JRC meet would follow the technical committee meeting," said the spokesperson.

Water resources ministry officials say, Bangladesh in 1999 approached India to sign a treaty with India to share the water of the Teesta following signing of the Ganges water sharing treaty in 1996.

The negotiation on Teesta has now been on for about a decade.

During Dipu Moni's India visit in September this year, Bangladesh and India in a joint statement agreed to form a joint technical team to gather hydrological data on the Teesta's water availability.

The joint-body is yet to be formed.

Foreign ministry sources said Bangladesh in 2005 handed India the draft of an agreement on Teesta water sharing.

The draft proposed that Bangladesh and India each would get 40 percent water of the Teesta and 20 percent water would go to Bay of Bengal for maintaining the channel of the river.

India did not accept Bangladesh's proposal.

The Teetsa waters are an important resource for Bangladesh's economy. About 7,50,000 hectares of agricultural land in the greater Rangpur district is dependent on the river.

The river has been facing a water crisis every dry season since India constructed a barrage in Gazoldoba in the upstream for irrigation.

Bangladesh Water Development Board officials say the government cannot move to the second phase of its Teesta irrigation project due to paucity of water in the river.

A total of 54 common rivers crisscross Bangladesh before falling in the Bay of Bengal. The two countries have signed only one deal to date on sharing of the Ganges water in 1996.

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