Gumti floods, Bangladesh's concern and India's reply

The Dumbur Dam on Gumti river in the Indian state of Tripura.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has in a sharp response to concerns expressed in Bangladesh that the untimely floods in the Bangladesh part of the Gumti River Basin is due to heavy downpour onrush of water from Upstream in Tripura is not because of release of excess water from the Dumbur dam on the same river.

The Indian MEA statement says the release of water at the dam point which 120 kilometres above the Bangladesh border, is what happens naturally. It says bulk of the water has collected from rainfall in both Tripura and Bangladesh downstream of the dam and that solution of the flood problem can be done through close cooperation beween the two countries.

The Indian ministry has also assuaged the people in lower riparian Bangladesh that they have fed flood forecasters with real time data which was interrupted only for a while due to the flood that caused power outage. 

The people of Bangladesh's eastern districts have been suffering from lack of Gumti River flow during the lean season. The Indian MEA in its statement has remained silent on sharing of River Gumti's dry season flow which is sucked away at the dam and its downstream leaving its Bangladesh part dry for years and decades with adverse impacts on life, livelihoods, environment and biodiversity.

What the Indian External Affairs Ministry has said also includes an information that 40 MW of electricity generated at the aforesaid dam-cum hydroelectric project is supplied to Bangladesh.

It said the dam height is 'only 30 meters' and flow of water from there is not supposed to cause much harm. What remains to be said is what is the relative height of the dam from the plains in the Cumilla district of Bangladesh, because Tripura is a hilly terrain and the elevation gets higher as one moves east.

The Indian MEA however deserves praise as it has made a response which has rerely been observed in the past. It always remains silent when using up of the the river's dry season flow presents Bangladesh with a dry Gumti which one of the 54 rivers shared between the two neighbours. 

The story is the same is respect of the Teesta river which is rendered dry through diversion of its flow at the Gazal Doba barrage in the lean season and flooded by the release of excess wet sesson flow. While Gumti floods have become a rarity, Teesta floods are an annual tragedy. 

Indian MEA's expression of assurance that flood problem can be solved through close cooperation sounds good, but it remains silent on Bangladesh's dry season worries of lack of river water. Then again in actual practice state governments like West Bengal become determining factors on questions of river sharing and management. 

Till such time as India shows inretests in mitigating Bangladesh's dry season water worries, statements like the present one mean nothing more than - Bangladesh has to tackle the vagaries of flood and we take the lean season flow of water.