Barrage debate: Back story of the Padma (Ganges) Barrage Project

On 13 May, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, approved the Ganges Barrage (First Phase) Project. The Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) had long been pursuing this project. It was officially named the Ganges Barrage because, from the very beginning, it was linked to the issue of sharing Ganges water with India.

According to many in India, the Ganges flows only through the Bhagirathi toward Kolkata. Establishing this narrative serves their interests, because it then becomes easier to deny Bangladesh’s share of the Ganges flow. For this reason, they are often reluctant to acknowledge that the main channel of the Ganges enters Bangladesh near Rajshahi and only takes the name Padma after joining the Jamuna at Goalanda.

Therefore, from the perspective of securing Bangladesh’s rightful share of the Ganges waters, it is better to call it the Ganges Barrage. On the other hand, the common people in Bangladesh generally consider the Padma to begin from Rajshahi onward. That is why, in recent times, it has increasingly been referred to as the Padma Barrage.

Whatever name it is called by, the idea remains the same: to construct a barrage (a dam equipped with gates) somewhere between Rajshahi and Goalanda, so that during the dry season the gates can be closed to retain water and divert it toward the Gorai-Madhumati and other distributaries of the Ganges in southwestern Bangladesh.

The idea dates back to the 1960s. However, after India constructed the Farakka Barrage in 1974 and began diverting Ganges water toward the Bhagirathi, the water level of the Ganges in Bangladesh declined during the dry season, creating a crisis for rivers in the country’s southwest. As a result, efforts to build a Ganges Barrage within Bangladesh gained greater momentum.

BWDB commissioned several studies. Their primary objective was to determine the most suitable location for the barrage, rather than to objectively assess whether constructing the barrage itself was a sound idea. In any case, BWDB conducted another study in 2016, and it is the project outlined in that study that is now being pursued.

Notably, the “Ganges Barrage Project” was also included in the Delta Plan 2100 formulated during the previous Awami League government. At that time, its budget was estimated at US$5.15 billion, which at current exchange rates amounts to approximately Tk 62,000 crore.

The current BNP government is moving forward with the same project. However, apparently in an effort to make the budget appear more “acceptable,” the project has been divided into two phases. Another similarity with the previous government is also evident: secrecy.

Like the previous government, the current administration approved this mega-project worth Tk 33,474 crore without giving the public any opportunity to learn about it, understand it, or express their opinions. The “feasibility study” on the basis of which the project was approved was not made available for public review. Nor was the matter discussed in parliament.

The public has been hearing for nearly two years about transparency, accountability, public participation in decision-making and similar principles. Were those merely empty words?

The planners of the Ganges Barrage Project claim that it will bring massive development to the Ganges-dependent region, namely the southwestern part of the country and the southern Ganges-adjacent areas of Rajshahi Division. Irrigation water, they say, will be supplied to nearly 2.9 million hectares of agricultural land across the greater Kushtia, Faridpur, Jashore, Khulna, Barishal, Pabna, and Rajshahi regions, resulting in an increase of about 2.4 million tonnes in rice production. Fish production is also expected to rise by approximately 250,000 tonnes.

In addition, turbines will be installed at the main dam and at the Gorai intake structure to generate 76.4 and 36.6 megawatts of electricity respectively — a total of 113 megawatts. Altogether, the project is projected to yield annual “economic benefits” worth Tk 7,127 crore. As a result, the project’s internal economic rate of return is estimated at 17.05 per cent. In other words, the proposed Ganges Barrage Project is being presented as highly profitable.

Since the 1950s, we have been hearing such grand claims of success regarding all water development projects. I have written about what actually became of these projects in two books: Water Development in Bangladesh: Past, Present and Future (2022), an 822-page volume, and Bangladesh Pani Unnayan: Bortoman Dharar Songkot Ebong Bikolpo Pother Prostab (2023) (Water Development in Bangladesh: Crisis of the Current Approach and Proposal for an Alternative Path (2023), a 481-page volume. Instead of repeating those discussions here, I will focus specifically on the pros and cons of the proposed Ganges Barrage.

However, one question must be raised at the outset. According to BWDB, the concerned engineers and consultants, and other supporters of the proposed barrage, the principal problem in southwestern Bangladesh is a shortage of water, and they are constructing the barrage to solve that problem.

But in reality, what we see is that the main problem in the southwest is waterlogging. People there remain trapped in water year after year. They cannot even walk on dry ground. Their lives are miserable. When someone dies, it is difficult even to find a place for burial.

If water scarcity is truly the principal problem, then why are people there now living in such waterlogged conditions? Does this not demonstrate that the engineers of the “Pani Bhaban” (BWDB headquarters) are failing to understand the fundamental nature of the problems in the southwest?

Clearly, the problem of drainage has become a greater issue in southwestern Bangladesh than water scarcity itself. This problem has been created by the BWDB. The BWDB constructed polders. Now the water inside those polders can no longer drain into the rivers.

The BWDB has also built countless structures known as sluice gates, flap gates, regulators, and so on, with the result that nearly all rivers and waterways are now clogged with obstructions and disruptions. Sedimentation in these blocked rivers has filled up their beds to the point that, in many cases, they are now level with adjacent roads. The entire river system of the region has fallen into disarray.

The BWDB’s 2016 study found that after the signing of the 1996 Ganges Treaty, during the period from 1997 to 2010, the average Ganges flow measured beneath the Hardinge Bridge between June and December ranged from 93.6 to 121.6 per cent of the average flow during the same months in the period 1934–1974 (that is, before Farakka). In other words, despite diversion through Farakka, there was no major reduction in the Ganges flow during those months. The question then is: why did this flow fail to properly reach the distributary rivers?

The BWDB has shown little interest in confronting these questions or solving the problem. First of all, removing the sluice gates, flap gates, regulators, and similar structures would require admitting its own mistakes — something it is unwilling to do. Instead, to protect its failed and dysfunctional sluice gates from local public anger, the BWDB has even set up police outposts beside some of them.

A major example of how BWDB deprived Ganges distributaries of water is the Baral River. At Charghat in Rajshahi, at the mouth of this river, the BWDB installed in 1984 a sluice gate with a total width of only 24 feet, whereas the natural width of the river mouth had been more than 500 feet.

Because of sedimentation, the sluice gate became ineffective, and eventually even during the monsoon season the flow of water from the Ganges into the Baral ceased. The once-lively, vigorous Baral River turned into a “dead Baral.” In 1996, further downstream at Atgharia, the BWDB installed another sluice gate over the Baral with a single gate only five feet wide, effectively ensuring the river’s death.

Despite intense protests by local people, the BWDB showed no interest in removing these sluice gates to revive the Baral. Even after a ministerial meeting decided, following two decades of public agitation, that the gates should be removed, the BWDB prevented implementation of the decision by citing the need for further studies.

Under pressure from the interim government’s adviser on water resources, the BWDB was finally compelled to raise the gates at Charghat several feet above the riverbed. Immediately, water from the Ganges began gushing into the Baral. Thousands of people from distant areas gathered on both sides of the Charghat sluice gate to witness this seemingly “miraculous” revival of a dead river. This dramatic transformation directly demonstrated that the BWDB’s sluice gates alone were responsible for preventing Ganges water from reaching the Baral during the monsoon.

Yet despite this evidence, the BWDB still refuses to remove the sluice gates. Instead, in 2015 the BWDB proposed constructing yet another sluice gate at Charghat. To support this plan, in 2018 it commissioned a study by a consulting firm of its choosing, and the resulting report endorsed the BWDB’s 2015 proposal. Notably, it is largely on the basis of this consulting firm’s study that the BWDB now seeks to implement the Ganges Barrage Project.

The Baral is only one example. The history of nearly every distributary of the Ganges in Bangladesh shows how flows from the main river were effectively blocked primarily because of BWDB activities. Had BWDB genuinely been committed to reviving these distributaries, it would have removed the obstructions built across them and restored the natural flow from the Ganges. But the BWDB is unwilling to take that path. Apparently, there are three reasons for this.

First, BWDB is almost entirely an engineering-driven institution. Its profession revolves around constructing physical structures. If rivers are allowed to remain open and unobstructed, the relevance of its engineering-centered approach diminishes. As a result, its tendency is to build structures even where no such structures are needed.

Second, BWDB is unwilling to remove the structures it previously built, even when they have proven harmful, because doing so would amount to admitting and establishing its mistakes. That, in turn, would make it more difficult in the future to propose and justify the construction of similar structures.

Third, constructing structures means obtaining budgets. And the larger the structure, the larger the budget. By contrast, removing misguided structures requires far less funding.

From this perspective, what could be more attractive than a Ganges Barrage Project worth Tk 64,000 crore? This, then, is the background of the proposed Ganges Barrage Project. In the next installment, we will discuss the project’s advantages and disadvantages.

* Dr. Nazrul Islam is a professor at the Asian Growth Research Institute and former head of the United Nations’ development research program.

* The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

* This article appeared in Bangla in Prothom Alo print and online and has been translated for Prothom Alo English online by Ayesha Kabir