OUR CORRESPONDENT, New Delhi

Bangladesh and India are set to hold the 86th meeting of the joint committee of technical experts in Kolkata next week and visit Farakka regarding the renewal of the 30-year-old treaty between the two countries on sharing the waters of the Ganges, which is up for renewal in 2026.

An 11-member Bangladeshi delegation led by Muhammad Abul Hossen, member of the Joint River Commission (JRC), is expected to reach Kolkata on March 3 and immediately leave on a two-day visit to the joint observation site on the Ganges at Farakka until March 5 morning.

Thereafter, the delegation is set return to Kolkata for a two-day meeting, under the aegis of the India-Bangladesh Joint River Commission, at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kolkata on March 6-7, according to a letter signed by RR Sambharia, senior joint commissioner (flood management).

Talking to The Daily Star this morning, Abul Hossen said they sit once a year to discuss cross-boundary rivers.

The Ganges is one of 54 rivers shared by India and Bangladesh, and long-standing differences over its water-sharing were resolved with the signing of the Ganga Waters Treaty in December 1996 by then Indian Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and his then Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina.

The treaty is due for renewal in 2026, and during ousted prime minister Hasina’s last official visit to New Delhi in June 2024, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the two sides had decided to begin technical negotiations for its renewal.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is expected to play a crucial role in the efforts to renew the Ganges water-sharing treaty, even as she continues to oppose the Teesta River water-sharing treaty, despite India and Bangladesh having agreed on its text in 2011.

Banerjee had last year sent a letter to Modi, contending that the move to renew the Ganga Waters Treaty was “unilateral” and that the West Bengal government was not consulted. However, federal Indian government officials pointed out that an internal committee set up by the Jal Shakti Ministry in July 2023 included representatives from the Bihar and West Bengal governments -- the two states through which the Ganges flows before entering Bangladesh.

West Bengal nominated its representative to the internal committee in August 2023 and participated in three of the panel’s four meetings.