"India to Divert Ganges Flow by 2000", [Dhaka, The New Nation in English, 30 Apr 91, pp. 1, 8].

India is building dams, barrages and reservoirs to store half of total flows of rivers passing through the country, according to an Indian expert.

Writing in a journal of Indian Institute of Management recently, Mr. Ramchandran Singh Deo, former Irrigation Minister of Madhya Pradesh and leading water expert, reported India would be completing exploitation of water resources of all tributaries of the Ganges by 2000 AD.

"So after 2020 AD what would remain on the river front are the few minor battles to be fought in relatively unknown streams, that also uneconomical" Mr. Deo wrote. This underlined the fact that India would be completing work of harnessing surface water specially of the rivers for its use in next 30 years. This will include the harnessing of the waters of the international rivers like the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, Barak and Jamuna which are the lifeblood of the economy and the source of existence of the lower riparian country like Bangladesh.

Experts and informed sources say that India dilly dallies over any negotiations relating to sharing of the waters of international rivers with the neighbors only to enable its engineers complete with work of harnessing the water resources.

According to Mr. Deo, India has completed construction of over 1,560 dams and barrages to harness the river waters. He expressed fear that India would have not enough site to build water reservoir after 2010 AD if the work continued at this present pace.

These open up possibilities for attaining self-sufficiency in food production by India. But, he warned, these projects had thrown up new problems. Principal among them was siltation and denudation of forests affecting the weather and ecology in India itself. India today faces untimely drought and floods.

He warned that in about 100 years all reservoirs will be silted up and any program to desilt will be uneconomic.

The water experts suggested that the Indian Government should stagger the construction of the reservoirs to understand its impact on the weather and ecology.

For "nature has its own way to have its revenge" he warned.

While the reservoirs and dams on the tributaries of the Ganges and other international rivers spring up, the availability of water down stream dries up, experts in Dhaka said. It will be so critical that Bangladesh will get no water from the Ganges and the Brahmaputra within the next 30 years. India will thus present the situation as fait accompli an expert who preferred not to be quoted said.

He said Bangladesh must demand data on dams and reservoirs built by India upstream to understand how much water out of the perennial flow India has already diverted. She must compensate the shortage, he said.