AGARTALA:The farmers in South Tripura living along Indo-Bangladesh border were unhappy with the stalemate of irrigation projects centering Feni river, a border between two countries, a senior official said on Friday.
According to a report, the Joint River Commission (JRC) had earlier agreed to sign a 15-year interim water-sharing treaty on two rivers – Teesta (in West Bengal) and Feni (in southern Tripura), maintaining Indo-Bangladesh border during the dry season.
With the delay of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka at the end of this monsoon (September) where the historic agreement on sharing of Feni water was to be signed, the embankment management for protection of cultivable land of Indian farmers in rainy season came to a halt.
Sharing of Feni water between India and Pakistan was discussed way back in 1958.India had been trying to withdraw water from Feni river for irrigation projects in exchange of resolving erosion problem on Bangladesh side but it was not executed because of procedural impediments.
After the 36th JRC meeting, a join inspection was conducted at various developmental and flood protection works in September 2006 and Feni river had been added to its mandate.The construction works of these irrigation projects had to stop following the objection of Bangladesh authorities in 2007, largely affecting the irrigation of crops, water resource development officials said hereon Friday.
They said besides irrigation projects, a large number of developmental projects, including river embankments, bridges, market sheds and drinking water sources along the India-Bangladesh border had remained half-done for a long time after objections raised by Bangladeshis referring to 1975 India-Bangladesh agreement.
They added Feni flows only 20 kilometres from Bay of Bengal and the Tripura Government had been demanding an inland harbour at Sabroom, connected to the sea through a canal and Bangladesh agreed to the proposal.
Accordingly, the Tripura Government had taken up the work for construction of a bridge over Feni River to link up with Tripura.
Construction was begun in December last for the 150 metre link between Sabroom and Ramgarh. (UNI)