Flood situation in Bangladesh not due to release of waters from Indian dam on Gomati river, Tripura

The Union Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) totally ruled out some reports over flood in Bangladesh and expressing its  concerns  said that  the current situation of flood in districts on the eastern borders of Bangladesh has been caused by opening of the Dumbur dam upstream of the Gomati River in Tripura is factually not correct.

It may be mentioned here that even as torrential rains engulf eastern Bangladesh, leaving millions displaced and infrastructure devastated, a bitter dispute with India has erupted over the cause of the flooding. While the Bangladeshi government and BD media blames India for releasing water from dams upstream, India vehemently denies the allegations, pointing to the unprecedented rainfall as the primary culprit.

The MEA through a press statement said that “We would like to point out that the catchment areas of Gomati river that flows through India and Bangladesh have witnessed heaviest rains of this year over the last few days.”

The statement said that the flood in Bangladesh is primarily due to waters from these large catchments downstream of the dam.

‘The Dumbur dam is located quite far from the border - over 120 Km upstream of Bangladesh. It is a low height (about 30m) dam that generates power that feeds into a grid and from which Bangladesh also draws 40MW power from Tripura. Along the about 120 Km river course we have three water level observation sites at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2,’ said the statement.

MEA added that heavy rainfall has been continuing since 21 August in the whole of Tripura and adjoining districts of Bangladesh. In the event of heavy inflow, automatic releases have been observed.

“Amarpur station is in part of a bilateral protocol under which we are transmitting realtime flood data to Bangladesh,” said MEA and added that data showing rising trend has been supplied to Bangladesh upto 1500 hrs on 21 August 2024. At 1800 hrs, due to flooding, there was power outage leading to problems of communication. Still, we have tried to maintain communication through other means created for urgent transmission of data.

Floods on the common rivers between India and Bangladesh are a shared problem inflicting sufferings to people on both sides, and requires close mutual cooperation towards resolving them.

‘As two countries sharing 54 common cross-border rivers, river water cooperation is an important part of our bilateral engagement. We remain committed to resolving issues and mutual concerns in water resources and river water management through bilateral consultations and technical discussions,’ said MEA statement.