Dhaka, Aug 10 (Inditop.com) Bangladesh will seek talks with India to resolve the issues arising out of the latter’s proposed Tipaimukh dam, and it was “not a big problem”, a minister has said.
State minister for Water Resources Mahbubur Rahman Sunday said a secretary-level meeting would be held between Bangladesh and India, if necessary.
“If the meeting fails, even higher level talks will be held to settle the matter,” The Daily Star quoted him as saying Monday.
He indicated a fresh move to send a delegation to India and formation of an experts’ committee to deal with the issue.
The state minister said the government has taken ‘positively’ the anti-Tipaimukh Dam “long march” by the opposition parties and the environmentalist groups.
“Now, it would be easy to show New Delhi that the people of Bangladesh are against the dam construction,” he added.
A Bangladeshi parliamentary team earlier this month twice attempted to land near the proposed dam site by helicopter, but failed due to inclement weather.
Sections of opinion makers here have said that the project over Barak river in India’s Manipur state could harm the ecology of the lower riparian Bangladesh.
The issue has got politicised here with the opposition joining the protests by the NGOs and accusing the government of hatching what it calls “a foreign conspiracy”.
Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain Sunday sought to link the Tipaimukh controversy with India’s Farakka Barrage over Ganga river that was settled with a treaty in 1997.
Harking back to his version of history, Hossain told media that the Ganga project was approved by the country’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in lieu of the Indian support to the country’s freedom movement.
Hossain alleged that India wanted Bangladesh to become a ‘crippled and ineffective state’, bdnews24.com web site quoted him as saying.
Hossain announced that opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia will initiate the movement to ‘prevent’ India from building the Tipaimukh dam.
