Tipaimukh dam-Disaster for Bangladesh

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Khaleda urges India not to build Tipaimukh Dam​

BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia speaks at a seminar organised by BNP at a city hotel
Star Online Report
BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia today urged the Indian government to abandon the idea of constructing Tipaimukh Dam on the river Barak considering its disastrous impact on the environment of both the countries.

Khaleda, also the leader of the opposition, was addressing a seminar on the impact of Tipaimukh dam this afternoon at a city hotel organised by her party. She also urged the Bangladesh government to work together with the opposition regarding this national issue.

Khaleda said her party is ready to co-operate with the government in all major issues to protect the country's sovereignty and interest.

Khaleda said that the government has nothing to fear in resisting the construction of the dam. "They will not be alone if they take a bold decision in this regard," Khaleda said.

"The Tipaimukh dam will have serious impact on Bangladesh. BNP will do whatever it needs to protect the country's interest," Khaleda added.

Eminent citizens, political leaders and media representatives were present at the programme while water experts gave a technical presentation on the impact of the proposed dam on the environment.

Engineer AMH Akhter Hossain presented the keynote paper at the programme.

Addressing the seminar former water minister Major (retd) Hafiz Uddin Ahmed said though the government is satisfied with India's assurance over Tipaimukh dam, his party would always oppose such projects on the trans-boundary rivers.

Among others, Standing Committee member of BNP Dr. Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain were also present at the occasion.

The Daily Star - Details News

 

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Tipai team to return without visiting site
Nazrul Islam
Bangladesh’s delegation returns home today from India abandoning its planned field trip to Tipaimukh project site after heavy rains failed its attempt twice.
The 10-member team left Guwahati, from where it tried to reach the site by helicopter on Friday and Sunday, for New Delhi with a hope to visit the project site in India’s Manipur state sometime in dry season, officials who are in constant touch with the team told New Age Sunday.
Former water resources minister Abdur Razzak led the delegation that left Dhaka for New Delhi on July 29 to talk to Indian officials and have a close look at the Tipaimukh dam site amid uproar against the planned Indian structures on the cross border river Barak that flows into Bangladesh rivers Surma and Kushiyara.
The delegation members held talks in Delhi but failed to reach Tipaimukh because of inclement weather in the hilly terrain, according to officials.
On return, the delegation would decide whether it will visit again in the dry season or send an expert group to assess the impacts of the Indian planned multi-purpose dam on downstream Bangladesh.
‘The dialogue will continue at different levels,’ said one official adding that the delegation members will have a meeting tomorrow to analyse the data they have collected on the dam during the visit.
The team, comprising six lawmakers from ruling Awami League and Jatiya Party, three officials and one academic, is learnt to have proposed a similar visit to the dam project in November.
Lawmakers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami refused to accompany the team, saying that such a trip would be a ‘picnic party’ without adequate presence of experts.
Choosing monsoon period was perhaps a wrong decision, the delegation chief Abdur Razzak told BBC in Guwahati.
The delegation during its stay in New Delhi held talks with Indian power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and officials concerned. Bangladesh proposed a joint impact study on the project. But no clear signal was given from the Indian side as yet.
The Indian authorities only said that they would not take any scheme harmful for Bangladesh — an assurance given by Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to prime minister Sheikh Hasina during a meeting on the sidelines of NAM summit in Egypt last month.
The project is a hydro-electric one and there is no possibility of diverting water from the common river, they said.
Environmentalists fear that the Indian project on the Barak river would restrict flow to the Meghna river and cause negative impacts on the ecology of the Sylhet region.
Leader of the opposition and former prime minister Khaleda Zia, in a letter last month, requested the Indian prime minister to drop the project.
The $1.7 billion project, cleared by the Manipur government, is awaiting approval by the Indian cabinet committee concerned. India says the project is designed to produce 1,500 megawatts of hydroelectricity.


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