DHAKA, July 15 (IANS): Bangladesh will send a team of lawmakers and water resources experts to India on July 29 to visit the site of the proposed Tipaimukh dam project in Manipur state in the North East. Opposition leaders and environmentalists here allege the dam poses a threat to the climate, ecology and drinking water supply of Bangladesh.
“The parliamentary team will leave Dhaka on July 29,” State Minister for Foreign Affairs Hasan Mahamud told media here Tuesday, ending uncertainty over the visit that India proposed in May.
The Tipaimukh dam is proposed to be built on Barak river in India’s Manipur state. Both governments are committed to resolve the issue through talks as protests mount in Bangladesh where opposition parties have joined a section of conservationists and NGOs to stage rallies against the project.
In announcing the date for the visit of the 10-member team, the Bangladesh government has not waited for word from main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
While holding back the names of its two lawmakers to be on the team, the BNP has launched its own protest action by preparing a letter that it would address to other foreign governments and international organisations.
The team will be led by Abdur Razak, a ruling Awami League lawmaker and chairman of the Bangladesh parliament’s Standing Committee on Water Resources. Razak alleged that the BNP was “playing politics” on the issue. India says the project is aimed at generating power and would not divert or hold up water from the river. Some groups in India’s Manipur are also opposed to the project saying the dam would displace thousands of people.
Barak river supplies water to two rivers in Bangladesh, the Surma and Kushiara, the main sources of water to hundreds of water bodies in the greater Sylhet region and which in turn feed the mighty River Jamuna. SOURCE: ASSAM TRIBUNE
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