Tipaimukh dam ‘our own disaster’: Speaker

Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed today (15 April) termed the Tipaimukh Dam on India’s Barak River a “disaster” for Bangladesh, saying it was initiated following a request from the country’s own side.

He made the remarks during a question-and-answer session in parliament while environment, forest and climate change minister Abdul Awal Mintoo responded to a query from treasury bench lawmaker Abdul Malique of Sylhet-3 on the dam’s potential impact on Sylhet.

The speaker said, “The Tipaimukh Dam, a proposed 1,500 MW hydroelectric project on the Barak River in Manipur, India, was introduced by that country with the request of the then foreign minister Abdus Samad Azad, and it was a disaster created by our own effort.

“As I was water resources minister, I have little experience that India has started the dam with the request of Mr Azad, and thus we have brought our catastrophe with our own effort.”

India began construction of the controversial Tipaimukh Dam on the Barak River in 2003 to generate electricity. The project later stalled due to national and international protests over possible environmental impacts within and outside India.

In late 2008, construction started up again. Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister at the time, promised the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina in joint statements made after bilateral summits in 2010 and 2011 that New Delhi would not take any action on the project that might endanger Bangladesh.

The dam is located near the confluence of the Barak and Tuivai rivers in the Tipaimukh sub-division of Churachandpur District in Manipur, close to the Manipur-Mizoram-Assam border. The project involves three northeastern Indian states.

The Barak River flows downstream into Bangladesh, joining the Surma river system, and is considered vital for the Sylhet region.