Farakka barrage be removed, suggests Bihar CM

The chief minister of India’s Bihar state has requested the central government to remove the Farakka barrage that diverts waters of the Ganges river before it enters into Bangladesh territory.

Nitish Kumar made the recommendation, the first by any Indian leader, as his state experiences devastating floods due to the barrage that has caused huge siltation on the river bed.
“It is not possible to protect Bihar from devastating floods without removal of the Farakka barrage on the Ganga,” The Hindu newspaper quoted Kumar as saying on Sunday.
The Bihar CM on Tuesday met Indian premier Narendra Modi in New Delhi and requested him to send a team of experts to assess the “unprecedented” situation in the state and prompt action on a national silt management policy.
Nitish Kumar reportedly expressed concerns that the Farakka barrage in West Bengal had led to silting in the Ganga and exacerbated the floods in Bihar.
Farakka barrage is located at the Bengal-Bihar border and meant to divert Ganges water into the Hooghly river and help in desolation process.
This, in turn, has made the river bed shallow and floods have become annual phenomena in Bihar.
The construction of the barrage began in the early 1960s and it was made operational in 1975.
Bangladesh has disputes with India over sharing of waters of common rivers including the Ganges and the two countries signed a 30-year water-sharing treaty in 1996.