No Tipaimukh move 'before informing Dhaka' | Bangladesh | bdnews24.com
New Delhi (bdnews24.com)--India has said that it will not take any hasty decision on the controversial Tipaimukh project without consulting Bangladesh before making a move on it.
India's minister of state for water resources Vincent H Pala said that New Delhi would make it sure before moving on the Tipaimukh hydroelectric project in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur that it did not have any adverse effect on its relation with Dhaka.
Pala's remark came almost two and a half months after India's government-owned NHPC Limited had floated a joint venture company with the government of Manipur and Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) Limited on April 28 last for implementation of the 1500 MW Tipaimukh Hydro-Electric (Multi-Purpose) Project.
The move by the NHPC Ltd – formerly known as National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Limited – had apparently sent out a somewhat confusing signal as Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh had assured his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina that New Delhi would not take steps on Tipiamukh scheme that would adversely impact its eastern neighbour.
Singh had made the assurance during Hasina's visit to New Delhi last January.
The NHPCL's move had triggered speculation in the diplomatic circle if New Delhi had been rethinking on or diluting its assurance to Dhaka on the controversial project.
Okram Ibobi Singh, chief minister of Manipur, too on July 12 last told the State Legislative Assembly that his government was determined to go ahead with the Tipaimukh Project.
But Pala said that India would abide by Singh's assurance to Hasina. "The prime minister has categorically assured that no hasty decision would be taken on the issue (Tipaimukh Project). We will take Dhaka into confidence before going ahead with the project, so as not to hamper the friendly India-Bangladesh ties," said Pala.
The Tipaimukh Project was conceived as a multipurpose storage project on the Barak River in Churachandpur district of Manipur, with main objective of hydropower generation along with flood mitigation in downstream area. The project is estimated to generate 3800 Million Units of electricity per annum and is likely to be completed within seven and a half years after the clearance from the Indian government's Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.
A section of environmentalists both in Bangladesh and India are opposed to the Tipaimukh Project. They believe that the dam over Barak would significantly bring down flow of water in its tributaries Surma and Kurshiara in Bangladesh. As hundreds of canals and major rivers, which are lifelines for people in greater Sylhet, are totally dependent on the water flow in Surma; there are apprehensions in Bangladesh that the Tipaimukh project of India could spell doom for a large part of the country.
The opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) had turned it into a major political issue after the Awami League-led government took office on January 6, 2009.
A delegation of Bangladesh parliament had travelled to India in July 2009 at the invitation of the Indian Government to see the site of the Tipaimukh Project.
The parliamentary team on their return had told journalists that the dam had not existed and the Indian government had assured them of not doing anything on Tipaimukh Project that would hurt Bangladesh in the downstream. The Indian prime minister had reiterated the same assurance to Hasina in January.
But the NHPCL, SJVN Ltd and the government of Manipur had on April 28 last signed a Memorandum of Understanding to launch the joint venture for implementation of the project.
According to the MoU, the NHPCL would hold 69 percent share in the joint venture, while the state government of Manipur and SJVN Ltd would have 5 percent and 26 percent stakes in it respectively.
S K Garg, the chairman-cum-managing director of the NHPCL, had later said that New Delhi had conveyed to Dhaka that the project would help mitigate floods in Bangladesh.
"We have conveyed (to Dhaka) that they (Bangladesh) would be better off with the project as it would lessen flood in downstream area," he had told journalists during the annual news-conference of the NHPCL here last May.
India's commerce minister Anand Sharma too had in last May referred to the Tipaimukh Project as one of the major projects in infrastructure sector in the country's underdeveloped north-eastern region that comprises insurgency-hit States like Manipur and Assam.
India's minister of state for water resources also said that the country's Union Government would also take into account the views of the local indigenous people before making a move on the project.
Several organisations of the indigenous people living around the project site have since long been protesting against the Tipaimukh Project.
