Teesta Deal: Mamata still 'reluctant'

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee apparently won't budge on a Teesta water sharing deal despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assurance to his Bangladesh counterpart that his government would find a solution to that end.

During a visit to Cooch Behar on Monday, Mamata reiterated that there is no water to spare for Bangladesh. This is what she had conveyed during her talks with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Modi in Delhi on April 8.

Mamata's hardened stance is also reflected when her party Trinamool Congress' Lok Sabha member Sultan Ahmed refused to join a parliamentary standing committee team on energy. The team was scheduled to visit Sikkim on April 21-23 to study the barrages on the Teesta used for generating electricity from eight plants and availability of water during the current lean season.

Trinamool Congress sources told The Daily Star that Mamata did not clear Ahmed's joining the standing committee's visit to Sikkim. Interestingly, the committee's visit to Sikkim had to be cancelled because of absence of the Trinamool Congress lawmaker as its government in West Bengal is a key stakeholder in any deal on Teesta. Instead, the committee, headed by BJP lawmaker Virendra Kumar, visited Tripura, Burdwan and Kolkata.

“The purpose of the committee's visit to the power plants on the Teesta in Sikkim stands defeated without the Trinamool Congress representative in it,” said a member of the committee.

Though the parliamentary committee's main agenda was to visit the power plants, according to the sources, it was looking forward to the opportunity to use the occasion to assess how much water was being used by the plants which were run-of-the-river projects and how much water was available in Sikkim part of the Teesta.

Mamata earlier claimed that West Bengal, being a downstream state, was not getting enough water in the Teesta from Sikkim which caused problems in irrigation and power generation in her state.

Noted hydrologist Kalyan Rudra, who was appointed by the Mamata government to assess water availability in the Teesta, has pointed to “poor” water management saying the timing of the release of water from the eight hydroelectric projects in Sikkim is not coordinated with the peak time need of farmers in West Bengal.”

It remains to be seen how the Modi government can work to persuade Mamata to agree to a deal on the Teesta which has been hanging fire for six years since it was scuppered at the eleventh hour by Mamata during the then Indian PM Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka in September, 2011.

Mamata has meanwhile asked Bangladesh not to contain water of the Atrai river as the inhabitants of one of its states are suffering from water crisis.

“By building dam, water of the Atrai is contained, that's why there is no water at Balur Ghat. Problem occurs. I'll request the friendly government of Bangladesh to free the water of the Atrai river,” she said.

Mamata said this while addressing a reception ceremony organised by Kamtapuri Peoples Party of Cooch Behar yesterday.

Source: thedailystar