India to discuss Teesta water project and renewal of Ganga water treaty

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Mint. About the Ganga water treaty renewal, the minister said, “We are moving forward positively." The Ganga treaty will complete 30 years in 2026 and calls for a renewal. Queries sent to the spokesperson of the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi, and the concerned departments of Sikkim and West Bengal governments remained unanswered at press time.

Teesta was one of the major topics discussed between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina during her last visit to India on 21-22 June. A major outcome was for India to send a technical team to Bangladesh soon for a mega project to conserve and manage Teesta River. Modi said at the time the two countries had also decided to start negotiations at the technical level for the renewal of the 1996 Ganga Water Treaty.

"A technical team will soon visit Bangladesh for talks to conserve and manage the Teesta River in Bangladesh," the Indian PM said in his media statement in June. Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra at a media briefing said at the time that India plans to undertake conservation and management of the Teesta River in Bangladesh and that there would be Indian assistance for this. Modi earlier said Bangladesh is India's largest development partner and New Delhi attaches highest priority to its relations with that country.

The demand for equitable sharing of the Teesta water goes back to 1947, but it has always been opposed by West Bengal and Sikkim. In 1972, shortly after the liberation of Bangladesh, a Joint River Commission was formed to verify the water sharing options between the two neighbours. Based on the commission’s recommendations, in 1984 it was decided that the water share of Bangladesh will be 37.5% and India’s share 42.5%, with 20% left unallocated.