Tipai team returns home ‘convinced’
Staff Correspondent
Courtesy New Age 5/8/09
The
Delegation leader Abdur Razzak also claimed that they now have in hand enough information, which was not gathered in last 20-25 years, to check with local experts and assess the environmental impacts from any such project on the common river Barak in Manipur state of
‘Both the Indian external affairs and power ministers reiterated the pledge of Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh that India would not implement any project which will do harm to Bangladesh,’ he said Tuesday at the Zia International Airport immediately after the team’s return from New Delhi.
The former water resources minister headed the 10-member delegation that reached
The team was to visit the controversial dam site in Manipur state, but inclement weather prevented the helicopter carrying them from landing there on Friday and Saturday. Half of the team returned home Sunday, but the six lawmakers stayed back in New Delhi for one more day for further talks with Indian authorities.
The delegation leader earlier said that Indian authorities had told them that a hydroelectricity project has been planned at Tipaimukh and there would not any irrigation component.
‘I can say for sure that there is no structure yet on the site. The future of the project is also not certain,’ Razzak said on the basis of impressions he got from Indian authorities and also the team’s aerial view of the project site.
Referring to the concerns of Indian officials, he said if anything goes wrong, environmental impacts would be felt by
ABM Ruhul Amin Hawlader, Jatiya Party’s secretary general and a member of the delegation, said
Asked whether
The North Eastern Electric Power Company, which was earlier assigned to implement the Tipaimukh project, has declined to go ahead with the job, he informed.
‘Now the Indian government is negotiating with NHPC Limited for implementation of the project. An agreement would be signed between them,’ he added
Razzak, who also chairs the parliamentary standing committee on water resources ministry, claimed that the delegation has got enough data in hand.
‘We also requested them for more data to examine the probable environmental impacts on
Sheikh M Wahid-uz-Zaman, water resources secretary, also a member of the delegation, said the information they got during the trip was not available to
‘We will analyse the data and share those with our experts to weigh the possible impacts of the project on
The government decided to send the parliamentary team amid an uproar against the planned Tipaimukh project, which local environmentalists and politicians feared would restrict flows to the Meghna and spell disasters for ecology in the Sylhet region.
Opposition BNP skipped sending its representative with the team.
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