Bangladesh presses India for a new Ganges treaty before expiry in Dec.

Why in the News

For 30 years the Ganga Waters Treaty, 1996 has fixed how India and Bangladesh share the river’s dry-season flow, but it lapses in December with no automatic extension clause and no successor agreed. Bangladesh says India has not answered its request to negotiate, and India’s Ministry of External Affairs says river matters are for the Joint Rivers Commission (JRC). Dhaka fears shortages threatening tens of millions of livelihoods.

What does the 1996 treaty do, and why does it matter?

1. What it is: The treaty divides the dry-season flow at India’s Farakka Barrage, river gates 20 km upstream of Bangladesh, like a fixed ration for lean months. It expires on December 12.
2. Why it was signed: After India opened Farakka in 1975, Bangladesh accused it of diverting most of the water. A 1977 deal, reached after United Nations intervention, lapsed a decade later.
3. Years without a treaty: At least three rivers almost dried up then, says a Dhaka-based environmental group. Eg. The Gorai, which feeds freshwater into the Sundarbans against saltwater intrusion.
4. The takeaway: Without the treaty, Bangladesh’s lean-season share has no legal guarantee.

Why is renewal stuck?

1. A slow commission: The JRC oversees water-sharing but held its last technical talks in May. Its last confirmed ministerial meeting was in 2022, after a 12-year gap.
2. Soured ties: Ties soured after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the treaty’s signatory, fled to India following a 2024 uprising. She has been sentenced to death in absentia and vows to return in December.
3. Unconfirmed visit: Bangladesh’s Prime Minister may visit India before expiry, but no visit is confirmed.
4. Teesta precedent: A proposed Teesta water-sharing deal has been stalled since 2011.

What does Bangladesh want in a new deal?

1. Mutual benefit: The prime ministerial adviser heading Bangladesh’s water-sharing committee wants a deal on “mutual benefit and respect”.
2. Climate and basin: A former Bangladeshi JRC member says India has built “additional dams” upstream. The member wants climate change provisions covering the whole river basin.
3. Rising demand: Freshwater demand has risen sharply on both sides, so failure could be worse than the years without a treaty.

What is at stake downstream?

1. A vast basin: The 2,525 km Ganga flows through the world’s most populous river basin, home to 655 million people.
2. Farms and fish: Shrinking flows in the Padma, the Ganga’s name in Bangladesh, have cut fish catches and ruined crops in the parched Barind region.
3. Irrigation shrinking: Bangladesh’s largest irrigation scheme, the Ganges-Kobadak project, was designed for 955 sq km and has shrunk to 550 sq km even with the treaty.
4. Own barrage: In May, Dhaka approved a $2.8 billion Padma Barrage to ease shortages.
5. Climate stress: Climate change worsens shifting flows, dry-season shortages and monsoon floods. Eg. The river has nearly doubled in width in Chapainawabganj.

Challenges

1. Legal vacuum: If talks miss the deadline, India has no treaty obligation on how much water reaches Bangladesh in the dry season.
2. Bihar’s objection: Bihar blames the Farakka Barrage for upstream silt and floods and opposes renewal, so the Centre must weigh a State against a neighbour.
3. Changing river: A shifting river course (morphology) and disputes over water levels at Farakka make a fresh sharing formula harder to fix.

Way Forward

1. Interim continuation: Both governments should agree to keep the current sharing schedule until a new treaty is signed.
2. Ministerial JRC meeting: Both sides should convene a ministerial JRC meeting before the deadline.
3. Basin-wide management: The JRC should manage all 54 shared rivers together, not one river at a time.

Conclusion

India and Bangladesh face a hard deadline with no agreed process to meet it. Whether a ministerial meeting or a leaders’ visit comes before the lapse will decide if the lean-season flow stays legally guaranteed.

Key numbers

1. Bangladesh’s share of the basin: more than 50 million of the basin’s people live in Bangladesh (World Bank).
2. Farakka Barrage: 2.2 km long.
3. Padma Barrage: includes a planned 113 MW hydropower plant.
4. Chapainawabganj: river widened by 3 km in recent years (Bangladesh Water Development Board).

Back2Basics: Ganga Waters Treaty, 1996

1. Lean season: Sharing applies to the dry season from 1 January to 31 May, divided in ten-day cycles.
2. Joint Committee: It records flows at Farakka and at Hardinge Bridge in Bangladesh.
3. Dispute route: Differences go to the Joint Committee, then the JRC, then the two governments.
4. No arbitration clause: Unlike the Indus Waters Treaty, it lets no external forum rule on disputes.

Matching Previous Year Question

“No direct PYQ traced in the provided files. Thematic PYQ: [2026] Match: A. Mangdechhu Hydroelectric Project B. Restoration of Stor Palace C. District Hospital at Dickoya D. Institute of Security and Law Enforcement Studies 1. Maldives 2. Afghanistan 3. Bhutan 4. Sri Lanka (a) A-1, B-4, C-2, D-3 (b) A-3, B-2, C-4, D-1 (c) A-3, B-4, C-2, D-1 (d) A-1, B-2, C-4, D-3 ANSWER: B”