By Muhammad Ali

The 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty was an important breakthrough in solving disputes over sharing Ganges water between India and Bangladesh. The past studies quantifiably recognized that Bangladesh has been frequently deprived of its minimum share during the most critical periods of the dry season. However, these works were more or less limited to piecemeal analyses due to the lack of sufficient hydrological data. Furthermore, most of the studies did not systematically investigate the critical features of the Treaty which led to severe water scarcity in a number of dry years; thus leaving a knowledge gap on the major barriers against the successful implementation of the Treaty.

Thus, a quantitative evaluation of the current Treaty is essential to negotiate further revision and extension of the Treaty. An understanding of future risks related to the new emerging conflicts will also be major concerns for the revision of the Treaty. Therefore, the present study focuses on the current status of the Treaty and explores the outcome of the Treaty provisions using a long-term data set on water availability recorded at Farakka in India and Hardinge Bridge in Bangladesh.

The signing of the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty in 1996 was considered as a new prospect to offer the opportunity for regional cooperation between India and Bangladesh. India, in spite of being the hydro-hegemon controlling most of the Ganges waters, showed positive intention towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict by incorporating the principles of equity and ‘do no harm’ to either riparian in the Treaty (GWT, 1996). But despite having a unique water sharing formula, the efficacy of the Treaty was questioned several times due to the low availability of flow at Farakka during the post-Treaty periods.

India and Bangladesh are likely to ink at least one major river agreement later this month. The planning for the agreement is being tightly guarded by officials on both sides as water sharing between the two countries is considered to be a sensitive subject given the fact that it often takes political meaning.

In response to a query, that there is a "strong possibility" that an agreement on the Kushiyara that flows from Assam into Bangladesh is part of one such agreement that may get "done" during the JRC. A diplomatic source also hinted at a "major agreement" involving the Ganga may also be taken up as there is a "strong urge" to achieve a big river agreement ahead of Prime Minister Hasina's visit, which may be her last trip to Delhi before Dhaka goes into election mode next year.

In the recent development, both sides are also expected to take up the Ganga Waters Treaty of 1996 that is scheduled to be renewed in 2026. The treaty was signed by Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda and PM Hasina in December 12, 1996 and was expected to be renewed after thirty years. Apart from these issues, reduction of river pollution and increased navigation are also on the agenda. Bangladesh will be back to square one regarding the Ganges water sharing in 2026 when its 30-year sharing agreement with India, signed in 1996, expires. The treaty underestimated the impact of climate variability on lower riparian Bangladesh due to increasing water withdrawals by India from the upstream.

While reviewing the water sharing of the Ganges from 1997 to 2016, water experts have found that during most of the critical dry periods Bangladesh did not receive its part as agreed under the Ganges treaty. The dispute between Bangladesh and India over the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna provides an example of a lack of a fair and acceptable institutional arrangement on sharing the world's third-largest freshwater outlet to the ocean. The insufficient supply of water in overpopulated downstream Bangladesh during the dry season causes severe adverse socio-economic impact by disrupting its agriculture, fisheries, forestry, navigation as well as ecology.

The facts and figures showed that a substantially lower amount of water than the indicative share as per the Treaty was released to Bangladesh during the six critical periods from March 11 to May 10. During the March 21–31 cycle in the year 2010, the actual release to Bangladesh was only 474 m3/s, which was 44% lower than the indicative release of 841 m3/s flows. There were further 38% and 36% decreases of 10-day average flows during the other alternate critical periods of April 11–20 and May 1–10 in 2010, which confirmed a consistent lower share for Bangladesh. In 2016 the situation became even worse than that of 2010; the actual release during March 21–31 was only 442 m3/s, which was 47% lower than the indicative share, followed by a further 34% and 49% decrease of flows during the other alternate critical periods.

It indicates that the Treaty performed poorly for both countries during low to moderate flow events, depicting a wide variation of flows released or withdrawn from Farakka. Such sharp ‘rise and fall’ fluctuation of flow distribution is the result of the obligation of providing a guaranteed 991 m3/s flow alternately to each country in the six 10-day cycles between March 11 and May 10. However, during favorable wetter years, it showed that the flow distribution was more than satisfactory and most of the time India was able to release more water than was specified in the Treaty. Results even indicated that the average flows at Hardinge Bridge during April 1–10 and April 21–30 cycles were unusually 5% and 2% lower than the flow released from Farakka, respectively. Due to the lack of natural justice as well as international best practices in the 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty, it require to be revamped and Bangladesh water rights must be protected.