River system in South Asia mainly concentrate on the Bangladesh- India river system. There are main three trans-boundary rivers between India and Bangladesh that make the country dependent on India (upper stream) for its river basin management.
India and Bangladesh share 54 trans-boundary rivers having the most vital rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna (GBM). GBM systems coverage about 10 % of global population is living in this area. There are some river linking project presently and some are to be constructed all over the Asia, especially by the upper riparian countries like India, China and also by Nepal in this region. Indian Government has an Interlinking River (ILR) plan. Under this plan India will join 37 rivers by 30 links.
The National River Linking Project (NRLP) is designed to ease water shortages in western and southern India while mitigating the impacts of recurrent floods in the eastern parts of the Ganges basin. River Linking projects of India are mainly categorized in two ways as (a) Peninsular Components (b) Himalayan Components. Peninsular Components; this part consists of 16 river linking projects. The links of this component will irrigate about 130,000 square kilometers of land and will generate about 4 GW of hydro-electricity. Himalayan Components; this is the upper (part) of India that is mostly river originating area for South Asian rivers. There will be created a series of reservoirs along Ganges and Brahmaputra river basins.
Water will be diverted from Brahmaputra (India) to the Ganges and Ganges also will be linked to the Mahanadi. This will irrigate 220,000 square kilometers of land in this region. There will be generated about 30 GW of hydro-power from this component of the project. China is also trying to divert the river water from its natural course. The Brahmaputra and Jamuna flows will decrease drastically by 60 %, if the project is implemented. If our upper stream countries are going this way then our Bnagladesh (lower riparian country) will be faces a horrible environmental crisis such as; reduction in availability of water resources both surface and ground water, deterioration of water quality, changes river morphology, salinity in soil, surface and ground water, modification of flood regime. shifting of agricultural practice, destruction of the ecosystem.
Bangladesh is a lower riparian country. On the other hand India is a giant and rising & booming super power in south Asia competing China. Mr. India always want to deprive his neighbor small and weak countries through bilateral discussion. So it needs to force India to come in the table of multilateral discussion even by the international communities to save our environment.
