Indian HC blames water crisis on lack of management

Indian high commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty said Tuesday that lack of management was mainly responsible for the water crisis in Bangladesh.
His remark came when a participant at a discussion on the relationship between Bangladesh and India drew his attention to the Farakka Barrage issue. "Water availability is not the issue.
Problem is lack of management," Chakravarty said at the discussion following a lecture by Indian author Nitish Sengupta on his book "Bengal Divided: The Unmaking of a Nation" in Gulshan.
The participant said that the Farakka barrage had turned out to be a matter of life and death and that the issue had hit the relationship between the countries hard.
Chakravarty said that those who blamed India for overflow of water in Bangladesh in the rainy season and drought in the summer were actually living in an unreal world.
"You have enough water. You can't manage it," he said. Sengupta, a former Indian bureaucrat and politician, said that cross-border communication and people to people contacts were important for strengthening relations between the countries.
He stressed the need to turn the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) into a reality to enhance cooperation among the countries in the region.
Recalling the history and culture of Bengal, he said that the peoples of Bangladesh and West Bengal have the same culture.
"Notwithstanding the highs and lows of India-Bangladesh relations, cultural unity and interaction between the two Bengals have remained steady," Sengupta said.
"Bangladesh and West Bengal can have closer cultural links and freedom of movement among themselves," he added.
Sengupta asked the leaders of India and Bangladesh to address the issues.
Professor Harun-or-Rashid, dean of Social Sciences Faculty of Dhaka University, gave an account of the history of Bangladesh and West Bengal.

Wednesday, 07 May 2008
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