Why Bangladesh-India Teesta Water Deal Remains Imperative
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- Bangladesh and China agreed during Bangladeshi PM Tarique Rahman's June visit to advance the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project, with China pledging feasibility-study support within its capacity.
- The earlier PowerChina proposal, based on studies from 2019, envisioned dredging 102 km of river, repairing 80 km of embankments, building more than 124 km of new embankments, and reclaiming over 170 sq km of land in its first phase, though a new joint feasibility study means scope and cost remain open.
- Teesta dry-season flow has collapsed from a natural ~5,000 cusecs to roughly 400 cusecs, disrupting more than 10 billion taka (~$81 million) in agricultural production annually according to the Bangladesh Water Development Board.
- A 2011 draft deal allocating India 42.5%, Bangladesh 37.5%, and 20% to the river was shelved after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee argued it would harm her state's farmers, and no agreement has been reached since.
- Sreeradha Datta of the Jindal School of International Affairs and Sheikh Rokon of the NGO Riverine People both told The Diplomat that Chinese engineering cannot substitute for upstream cooperation, with Datta stating flatly that "if the river does not have an adequate flow, no project can artificially increase it."
- India offered in 2024 to send a technical team to discuss Teesta management — an offer widely read as concern about a major Chinese footprint near the strategically vital Siliguri Corridor that connects mainland India to its northeastern states.
- The Teesta carries roughly 49 million tons of sediment each year, and climate change is expected to bring sharper monsoon surges alongside deeper dry-season deficits, compounding the limits of any engineering-only solution.
Why it matters: The Teesta's dry-season flow has fallen to about 400 cusecs from a natural 5,000 cusecs, costing Bangladeshi farmers over 10 billion taka ($81 million) annually, and since Chinese-funded dredging and embankments cannot create new water, Bangladesh's northern agricultural economy remains structurally hostage to a 2011 water-sharing formula that New Delhi never signed. Rokon's warning that pressing ahead with the Chinese master plan without an India accord would amount to ceding riparian rights gives Dhaka a concrete diplomatic cost to weigh against the infrastructure gains.
