China forcing Bangladesh into unviable project of managing river Teesta

DHAKA: China is trying to thrust on Bangladesh a project for comprehensive restoration of river Teesta and management of the river basin that is unviable and likely to do serious damage to the environment of Bangladesh in the long run.

Dhaka is naturally reluctant to implement it and has so far resisted Chinese pressures to accept the project, Bangladesh Live News Reported. China is trying to seize the opportunity of the delay in the signing of the Teesta water-sharing deal between India and Bangladesh. New Delhi is sincere about sharing Teesta water with Bangladesh equitably and is keen on an early signing of the deal which was agreed upon between the two countries in 2011 when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister of India.

Taking advantage of this impasse, the Chinese government is forcing Dhaka to agree to a plan of dredging the entire length of river Teesta running through Bangladesh, straightening the course of the river which is inherently braided and digging ponds and reservoirs in the bed of the river to store water for the dry season, Bangladesh Live News Reported.

Accompanied by these, of course, there is the proposal for the reclamation of land in the river basin, using the dredged material, to set up roads, satellite towns and industrial parks with loans from Chinese companies. It is a replication of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) model of China which has been tried in so many countries and failed; resulting in the recipient countries landing in a debt trap.

Nearly 21 million people depend on the 100-km-long stretch of river Teesta running through Bangladesh for their livelihood. The river has a network of small channels with islands in between created by the large amounts of sediment carried down from the Himalayas accumulating on the river bed. This causes frequent floods and severe erosion of the river bank during the monsoon, in the dry season the river basin faces a shortage of water, Bangladesh Live News Reported.

In 1997 the flow of water from the Teesta in Bangladesh in the dry season was nearly 6,500 cusecs, but in 2006 the flow fell to 1,350 cusecs and in 2016 the flow was only 300 cusecs.

Because of the low flow of water from river Teesta, in the dry season, the northern parts of Bangladesh face a water crisis. Most of the 110,000 hectares of irrigation land in the Teesta river basin in Bangladesh cannot be cultivated in this period.

In 2013-14, only 35 per cent of the total irrigational area was cultivated.

Chinese engineers want to force the flow of the river into a narrow main channel and increase the availability of water in the dry season by building a network of canals and ponds to store the water of the monsoon rain, Bangladesh Live News Reported.

Several experts in Bangladesh have criticized the Chinese plan as being an unrealistic one, destined to fail. The Teesta river has a width of five kilometres, with its main channel bifurcated by islands. Chinese engineers want to force its flow into a narrower channel, around one kilometre wide.

Experts have pointed out that an attempt to straighten a braided river will increase the velocity of the water to a potentially unmanageable level.

The river, with multiple rivulets and islands, has developed over thousands of years. It will be a continuous struggle to keep the river bed that is more than five kilometres wide, in a single and deep channel only one kilometre wide, Bangladesh Live News Reported. (IANS)