An all-party parliamentary committee will take a decision on whther to send an expert team to the site of the proposed Indian Tipaimukh dam and hydropower project over the cross-boundary river Barak, the water resources minister said Sunday.

"A meeting will be called soon following formation of the all-party committee," Ramesh Chandra Sen told reporters in the capital.

He said the committee will decide if an expert team will visit the Tipaimukh dam, for which the Indian government has invited Bangladesh to "allay concerns".

Ramesh said, "Proposals about the Tipaimukh barrage came during the BNP government. We don't want to say anything about what their response was. However, I can say that this is the pro-liberation government and nothing against the country's interests will be allowed."

Earlier, on May 27, prime minister Sheikh Hasina said that her government would form an all-party parliamentary body to report on the pros and cons of the proposed Tipaimukh barrage in India before taking a stance on the disputed project.

The next day, the main opposition BNP urged the government to send a joint team of technical experts instead of an all-party parliamentary committee to inspect the Tipaimukh dam construction site.

BNP vice president and former water resources minister Hafiz Uddin Ahmed said, "Inspection by an all-party parliamentary committee is of no use."

"Besides, since the topic of Tipaimukh dam construction is controversial it is not right for the parliamentary committee to go there," he added.

India initiated the move to construct the dam in 2003 over the cross-boundary river, which enters into Bangladesh through Sylhet before meeting the Meghna, one of Bangladesh's major rivers.

It started the construction later last year without consulting Bangladesh.

Bangladesh environmentalists are concerned about the dam's impact on the Meghna greater Sylhet region in northeast Bangladesh.

Bangladesh gets 7 to 8 percent of its total water from the Barak in India's northeastern states. Millions of people are dependent on hundreds of water bodies, fed by the Barak, in the Sylhet region for fishing and agricultural activities.

India says that the hydropower project will not harm Bangladesh.

According to some reports, the proposed Tipaimukh dam across the river Barak in the Indian state of Monipur will be 162.5 metres high and 390 metres long to create a reservoir by permanently submerging some 2.75 square kilometres of land.

India expects to generate around 1500 megawatt of hydropower from the project.

Source: bdnews24.com

Comments

Add New

Write comment
Name:
Email:	We don't publish your mail. See privacy policy.
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.