The current flood situation in Bangladesh is not due to the release of water from the dam on the Gumti River in Tripura, India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated on Thursday.
“We have seen concerns being expressed in Bangladesh that the current flood situation in districts on the eastern borders of Bangladesh has been caused by the opening of the Dumbur Dam upstream of the Gumti River in Tripura. This is factually not correct,” the press release stated.
It pointed out that the catchment areas of the Gumti River, which flows through both India and Bangladesh, have experienced the heaviest rains of the year over the last few days. The flooding 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 dam (about 30m) that generates power for the grid, from which Bangladesh also draws 40MW of power from Tripura, the press release added.
According to the release, along the approximately 120 km river course, there are three water level observation sites at Amarpur, Sonamura, and Sonamura 2. Heavy rainfall has been ongoing since August 21 in the entire region of Tripura and the adjoining districts of Bangladesh. In the event of heavy inflow, automatic releases have been observed. The Amarpur station is part of a bilateral protocol under which real-time flood data is transmitted to Bangladesh.
“Data showing a rising trend has been supplied to Bangladesh up to 1500 hrs on August 21, 2024. At 1800 hrs, due to flooding, there was a power outage leading to communication problems. Nevertheless, we have tried to maintain communication through other means created for the urgent transmission of data,” the release said.
Floods on the common rivers between India and Bangladesh are a shared problem, causing suffering to people on both sides, and require close mutual cooperation to resolve. As two countries sharing 54 common cross-border rivers, river water cooperation is an important part of our bilateral engagement. India remains committed to resolving issues and mutual concerns in water resources and river water management through bilateral consultations and technical discussions, the press release concluded.
-Navalsang Parmar (Dhaka)