Staff Correspondent:

After an intensive on-the-spot survey for two days of the current status of the flow in the Ganges river at Farakka in West Bengal, technical experts and senior officials of Bangladesh and India will sit across the negotiating table in Kolkata on Thursday.

A visiting team from Bangladesh and officials of India visited the Farakka Barrage, exchanging data on the water flow of the Ganges at joint inspection sites.

The water-sharing treaty’s 30-year term ends next year.

RD Deshpande, general manager of the Farakka Barrage Project Authority, said, “We had an amicable discussion on certain issues and shared certain information on the flow of the Ganges water.”

The barrage, located over the Ganges with Malda and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal on both the banks of the river, is the point from where water is discharged to Bangladesh.

Among the sites visited by the Bangladesh delegation until on Tuesday were the water levels of the Ganges downstream and the feeder canal. After the visits, the Bangladeshi team had a long discussion with Indian officials ahead of the talks at Hotel Hyatt Regency in Kolkata.

On the discussion table in Kolkata will be the data related to water flow in the Ganges during the lean season from January 1 to May 31 during which the water level increases and declines every ten days due to natural causes, said Md Abdul Hossen, leader of the Bangladesh side.

Farakka Barrage General Manager RK Deshpande termed the joint inspection of Ganges water flow as an annual exercise at the barrage and at the Hardinge Bridge sites during the dry season.

Yesterday, the flow of water in the Ganges at Farakka was 68,000 cusecs (cubic feet per second), he said.

Under the existing Ganges water-sharing agreement signed on December 12, 1996, Bangladesh and India will get 35,000 cusecs to 40,000 cusecs respectively every ten days during the dry season depending on the water level.

At the Kolkata meeting of the 86th meeting of India-Bangladesh joint committee under the banner of Joint River Commission (JRC), both sides will try to reconcile their respective data collected from Farakka.

After the meeting, the two sides will submit their reports to their respective ministries of Water Resources (Bangladesh) and Jal Shakti (India), which will form the basis of the possible dates for the JRC meeting which are yet to be confirmed.

The Bangladeshi delegation returns to Dhaka on March 8.