Dhaka: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that even though China is ready, she would prefer India to execute the $1 billion Teesta River basin development project. After her recent visit to China, PM Hasina shared her views during a media interaction at her official residence, stating: “China is ready but I want India to do the project.”
“China has made an offer to us, they did a feasibility study. India has also made an offer, and will do a feasibility study,” she was quoted as saying in Bloomberg. The PM said she would give greater priority to the project being done by India because "India has held up Teesta’s waters. If they have to give us the water, they should implement the project. If they do the project, they will give us what we need,” she said.
During Hasina's visit to New Delhi last month, the development of the 414 km-long Teesta River basin was a key topic of her discussion with PM Narendra Modi. PM Modi said at the time that an Indian technical team will soon visit Dhaka for talks on the conservation and management of the Teesta, one of 54 rivers shared by the two countries.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud recently visited New Delhi to attend a BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) foreign ministers’ retreat. During this visit, Mahmud met Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to discuss sending a technical team for the Teesta River Basin’s conservation and management.
An agreement on sharing the Teesta river's water was reached in 2011, but it was not finalized due to objections from the Indian state of West Bengal, through which the river flows before entering Bangladesh. In the meantime, China stepped in with an offer of its own.
