BHUBANESWAR (Orissa), Mar 21: Although West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, during her recent Bangladesh trip, didn't reveal what is up her sleeve over the sharing of Teesta waters, she now made her mind clear about the rights of her state to hold back water rolling down the common rivers into Bangladesh.
Press reports here today said Mamata has written to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for blocking water flow to Bangladesh through one damaged sluice gate of the Farakka Barrage by replacing it immediately.
She wrote to Mr Modi for his immediate intervention to ensure phase-wise replacement of the barrage gates, one of which had collapsed recently.
According to West Bengal irrigation minister Rajib Banerjee, extensively quoted in the Indian media, in her letter to the prime minister Wednesday, the chief minister urged the Centre to initiate phase-wise replacement of all the 112 gates of the barrage.
"The collapse of gate number 49 recently has led to free flow of water to Bangladesh. The situation may worsen if other gates, too, collapse," Banerjee said about the urgency repairing the outworn barrage.
The barrage over the common river Ganges-said to have been originally planned back during the British rule in the subcontinent--has been a bone of contention for the lower-riparian Bangladesh since shortly after its birth.
"Most of these gates are damaged and need replacement. So far, only 22 have been replaced. So the chief minister has written to the prime minister seeking his immediate intervention," said the minister.
Mr Banerjee said during his recent meeting with Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti in Siliguri, he had apprised her of the poor condition of all the lock-gates at Farakka Barrage and that at least two of them had collapsed some time back.
The Union minister had told him that all the lock-gates of the barrage needed to be changed in phases by 2017, Banerjee said, adding that she had also apprised the prime minister of the matter so that a time-bound programme could be initiated.
He said the chief minister has written to the prime minister for ensuring a time-bound replacement to protect the interests of Paschim bangla as, with the collapse of the lock-gates, the water was quite often flowing down to Bangladesh.
The Farakka Barrage is located 17 kilometres from the Bangladesh border. The gate-number 49 was washed away on March 15, leading to free flow of water down the barrage. Following this, this authorities have diverted excess water into a feeder canal and towards Bangladesh.
The two countries signed a landmark 30-year agreement in 1996 on the sharing of Ganges waters for developmental needs of the region so that it could contribute to regional integration.
A total of 54 rivers flow through India and Bangladesh. But the two countries have yet to reach a consensus on sharing the 53 common rivers, save the Ganges.
The long-awaited Teesta water-sharing accord, which was to be signed during the visit of then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Bangladesh, could not click due to Mamata's intransigence.
The Paschimbanga chief minister, during her trip to Dhaka this past February, did not specifically say when the agreement could be signed but said work was going on to remove complexities veering round it.
