Bangladesh News

Torrential rain yesterday prevented the Bangladesh parliamentary delegation from undertaking a ground-level visit to the proposed site of the Tipaimukh project in Manipur for the second consecutive day.

Awami League lawmaker Abdur Razzak, who is leading the delegation, told The Daily Star that they plan to visit the site in November this year when the weather is expected to be clear in the northeastern Indian state.

The delegation, however, made an aerial survey of the site where the 1500MW power project is to come up on Barak river, Razzak told The Daily Star over the phone from Guwahati.

He said the helicopter carrying the delegation members took off from Guwahati at 7:00am and returned at around 11:00am. The chopper hovered over the project site for sometime but could not land due to heavy rain.

“From whatever we could see through the maze of clouds and rain, there appears to be no construction activity at the project site,” Razzak said in reply to a query.

The delegation earlier failed to visit the project site on Friday as the helicopter could not to go much further due to heavy downpour after taking off from Guwahati.

Razzak said the delegation on its return to Dhaka would submit a report to the parliamentary standing committee on water resources ministry on its discussion with Indian officials and External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on July 29 and July 30.

He is also expected to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to apprise her of the delegation’s deliberations with the Indian leaders and officials.

Replying to a question, he said both Krishna and Shinde had assured the parliamentary team that no irrigation project would come up downstream or upstream of the Tipaimukh project and India would not do anything that will harm Bangladesh’s interests.

The AL lawmaker said the Indian side informed the delegation that the project would benefit Bangladesh as it would help the latter control floods.

Asked if the delegation had raised the issue of joint inspection of the availability of water in Barak river to gauge the impact the project might have on water flow, Razzak said, “We are not authorised to make any proposal and our mandate was to hold talks with the Indian side and visit the project site.”

“Besides, putting forward proposals and ideas is something to be done between the governments of the two countries, not between a parliamentary delegation and a government,” he said.

The delegation later returned to Delhi. It will travel to Ajmer today and return to Dhaka tomorrow ending a five-day visit.

Sources said the timing for the delegation’s visit to the project site was not appropriate as it was the peak of monsoon in the entire northeastern India.