India has its moral obligation to do justice to its next generation and neighbours and take serious steps to move ahead with a regional cooperation arrangement beneficial for the friendly neighbouring countries, said an adviser to the Bangladesh Prime Minister on Monday.
Dr Mashiur Rahman, adviser to the Prime Minister on Economic Affairs, said the decision to put more emphasis on power import from India keeping the water issue at the back seat was a wrong strategy of Bangladesh as hydropower would come automatically, if the access to water use was ensured.
He laid emphasis on a more effective diplomatic initiative by Bangladesh to involve India, Bhutan and Nepal in hypdropower and water sharing agreements instead of bilateral agreements, as it would be impossible to get power or water from those countries bypassing India.
"There can be ethics for the neighbours. India, I believe, has morality and obligation to do justice to the next generation and its neighbours," he said.
"By these both sense of justice and morality, I guess India ought to consider seriously of moving ahead to a cooperative arrangement which is beneficial for the countries around it with friendly relation," he added.
He was speaking as the chief guest at a seminar on 'Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100: Implementation Challenges and Way Forward' at the auditorium of Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) in the city.
The BIISS in collaboration with the General Economics Division (GED) of the government organised the seminar. GED member Shamsul Alam presented the keynote paper of the seminar.
Mentioning the importance of sub-regional cooperation to implement the Delta Plan 2100, he said 90 per cent of the catchment area is outside Bangladesh. All of the countries could be benefited, if there was regional cooperation.
Unfortunately the four countries-Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan could not come up with a sustainable long-term programme of cooperation, he added.
"Bangladesh bears the brunt of that failure," he said.
Referring to different cooperation agreements in various areas during the term of the present government, he said a substantial progress had been made in transport connectivity and transit. But the progress was little in other areas.
Regarding the joint river commission, the adviser said they had occasionally met since the agreement was signed and prepared a draft text on the Teesta. But the Teesta issue also reached a stalemate, he added.
"The point of stalemate is very fuzzy. Because the agreement was basically to see how much water flows to Bangladesh while water flow was guaranteed for dry season," he said.
He also criticised the violation of the Bangladesh-India Ganges Water Sharing Agreement.
"During monsoon, Bangladesh gets more water than it needs which is wasted. During dry season, it gets less than it requires," said Mr Mashiur.
In some cases Bangladesh gets one-seventh of what is required, he added.
Bangladesh had handed over a feasibility report on the Ganges barrage to India, he said. Since then there had been some exchange of questions only.
"Unless there is a flow of water from the upper riparian countries to the lower riparian ones, we have problems with water management," he said.
Criticising the agreement between Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan for hydropower and water sharing, he said India in principle agreed but practically it had not signed it.
"The agreement with Nepal and Bhutan does not make any sense as they have to come through India," said the noted economist.
"It seems to me that the attitude towards cooperation is somewhat ambivalent. Because all the three rivers are international and it does not depend upon me to identify them as international," he said.
Referring to India honouring the inter basin agreement with Pakistan to share irrigation water, Mr Mashiur said India honoured the agreement even during the worst time of the conflict over Kashmir.
"It does appear that India is sensitive about its international commitments. It should be sensitive also to its potential international commitment, particularly if the commitment is beneficial for the friendly neighbours," he urged.
Regarding the wrong diplomacy on the part of Bangladesh, he said the country put more emphasis on immediate access to import of power from India putting the water issue at the back seat which was a constraint.
"We put more emphasis on immediate need and ignored the farsighted strategic needs that will be helpful for our growth. We ought to take diplomatic initiative to do strategic foresights," said Mr Mashiur.
'Once we get access to the use of water," hydropower would come automatically, he observed.
Regarding challenges to implementation of the Delta plan, Institute of Water Modeling executive director Professor M Monowar Hossain said there were implementation challenges as Bangladeshis were lacking knowledge, capacity, equipment and ability to implement any project timely.
"Is there anything wrong with our programming, vision and modeling?" he asked.
The drought-like situation during winter and flood in monsoon would be another challenge with population being displaced per annum, he added.
GED member Shamsul Alam said Bangladesh is an active delta and the erosion of it was still higher than accretion. But the rate of erosion could be arrested by taking some intervention measures.
He also said that there would be no major flood in the country after 2030 as Delta plan was being implemented.
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