\n In Bangladesh's parched Barind region, 72-year-old Bikash Soren remembers when the Ganges river flowing in from neighbouring India carried large boats past his village year-round.\n<\/p>\n
\n But the South Asian country is now blighted by persistent water shortages -- and the expiration of a long-term water-sharing deal with Delhi in just a few weeks' time threatens tens of millions of livelihoods.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"For almost three months a year, you hardly see the river flowing,\" the Protestant priest said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Two farmers killed themselves last season, he added, after dwindling water levels left their rice and wheat crops in tatters.\n<\/p>\n
\n Shrinking flows in the Ganges have also slashed fish catches in the river, known in Bangladesh as the Padma.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Where will we find fish now?\" said Abu Bakar Siddique, 55, who has switched to fish farming in ponds.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I used to catch many kinds.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The 2,525-kilometre (1,569-mile) Ganges flows through the world's most populous river basin, home to 655 million people including more than 50 million in Bangladesh, according to the World Bank.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 1996 treaty, which expires on December 12, governs dry-season water sharing at India's Farakka Barrage, 20 kilometres (12 miles) upstream of Bangladesh.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Bangladesh needs a new deal based on \"mutual benefit and respect\", Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, a prime ministerial adviser who heads a technical committee on water-sharing, told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n Water arguments over 54 cross-border rivers between India and Bangladesh stretch back decades, and the Ganges is among the most important.\n<\/p>\n
\n Malik Fida A. Khan, a former Bangladeshi member of the Joint Rivers Commission (JRC), the body overseeing water-sharing, said India had built \"additional dams\" upstream.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This time, the agreement must include provisions on climate change -- and take the entire river basin into account,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Soured relations -\n<\/p>\n
\n Bangladesh said India had not responded to its request to negotiate a treaty renewal.\n<\/p>\n
\n New Delhi's foreign ministry said that \"discussions regarding river-related matters\" are a matter for the JRC commission, which held its last technical talks back in May.\n<\/p>\n
\n The last officially confirmed ministerial-level JRC meeting was in 2022 -- after a 12-year gap.\n<\/p>\n
\n And a proposed water-sharing deal for the cross-border Teesta river has been stalled since 2011.\n<\/p>\n
\n Relations between New Delhi and Dhaka have soured since Bangladesh's ex-leader Sheikh Hasina fled to old ally India, where she remains, following a 2024 uprising.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hasina, sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity, has vowed to return to Bangladesh from India in December, the month the treaty she signed expires.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bangladesh's Prime Minister Tarique Rahman may also reportedly visit India before the treaty expires, but no visit has been confirmed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Arguments over water-sharing date back to 1975, when India opened the 2.2-kilometre (1.3-mile) Farakka Barrage -- which Bangladesh accuses Delhi of using to divert most of the water.\n<\/p>\n
\n The United Nations intervened in the dispute and a deal was agreed in 1977.\n<\/p>\n
\n But water-sharing arrangements lapsed a decade later, bringing severe consequences, said Sheikh Rokon of Dhaka-based environmental group Riverine People.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The Ganges suffered during the years without a treaty, and at least three rivers almost dried up,\" Rokon said.\n<\/p>\n
\n One was the Gorai, which carries freshwater into the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest and a World Heritage site, helping limit saltwater intrusion as sea levels rise.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bangladesh's Ganges-Kobadak Irrigation Project, designed to water a vast area of farmland bigger than the size of Berlin, \"became inoperative because of water scarcity\", Rokon said.\n<\/p>\n
\n In May, Dhaka approved the Padma Barrage, a $2.8-billion project intended to ease shortages and include a 113-megawatt hydropower plant.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Disastrous' -\n<\/p>\n
\n The 1996 treaty has no automatic extension clause.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"If we fail to reach a deal, I fear the situation will be worse than what we experienced during the years without a treaty,\" Rokon added.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Demand for freshwater on both sides has increased significantly.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Even with the treaty in place, the Ganges-Kobadak project has shrunk to 550 square kilometres, according to Bangladeshi state news agency BSS.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"If the river does not carry enough water, the consequences could be disastrous,\" said Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan, a geology professor at Bangladesh's University of Rajshahi.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bangladesh's agriculture-dependent economy is already reeling from the impact of climate change, which compounds shifting river flows, alternating dry-season shortages and intense monsoon floods washing away farmland and villages.\n<\/p>\n
\n In Chapainawabganj district, the river has widened by three kilometres in recent years -- nearly doubling its size -- according to Bangladesh's Water Development Board.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rehana Khatun, 50, described the \"howling sound\" as floods destroyed her home in Fielder Bazar village.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The river turned wild and started swallowing everything along the bank,\" said Khatun, who now lives in a bamboo shelter.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"And the trauma stays with children long after the waters recede.\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Bangladesh's parched Barind region, 72-year-old Bikash Soren remembers when the Ganges river flowing in from neighbouring India carried large boats past his village year-round. But the South Asian country is now blighted by persistent water shortages -- and the expiration of a long-term water-sharing deal with Delhi in just a few weeks' time threatens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-167934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n