Farakka is a name of Curse for India & Bangladesh nowadays

Farakka is located on the river Ganges in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal, India, 16 km from the Chapai Nawabganj border in Bangladesh. In 1971, construction work on the river Ganges began and construction was completed in December 1984. The length of the dam is 2.24 km. It is not just a dam, this infrastructure is also used as a road and rail link. The dam has a total of 109 gates. Water is supplied from this dam to the Farakka thermal power plant. The Farakka Dam was built in the 1950s near the port of Calcutta to clear the silt of the Hooghly River. The Hindustan Construction Company built the dam at a cost of about 1 billion rupees with the help of the then Soviet Union.

After the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, talks started with India on the distribution of water in the Ganges. On 16 May 1974, Sheikh Mujib, the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh, and Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, discussed the distribution of water at Farakka Point. The conference decided that India would not blacken the Farakka Dam before the two countries reached an agreement. Although the Bangladesh government in 1975 for only 10 days to test a part of the dam allows India to remove 310 to 450 cusecs of water from the Ganges. But until the dry season of 1976, India carried 1130 cusecs of water from the Ganges to the Bhagirathi River in West Bengal. This kind of injustice done by India to Bangladesh was discussed in the UN General Assembly but India did not pay much attention to it. Despite short-term water sharing agreements in 1978, 1982, 1985 and 1992, India never acted on its word.

India is not abiding by the 30-year water-sharing agreement reached with India in 1996, despite the fact that it is clear. After every agreement, India has been unfairly violating the terms of the agreement. Cubic foot per second is the unit of water measurement for a river or a flowing body of water. Which is called CUSEC for short. According to the Indo-Bangladesh agreement, if the river has 70,000 cusecs of water, both countries will get 35,000 cusecs. And if there is 75,000 cusecs water, India will get 40,000 and Bangladesh will get the rest. India's will is to remove and shut off water from the dam in an uncontrolled manner. As a result, Bangladesh was hit by severe drought in the dry season and cover floods in the monsoon season.

As a result of this arbitrariness centered on the Farakka Dam, not only Bangladesh but India itself is being severely damaged. Even before the construction of the Farakka Dam, the river experts of the two countries opposed it, saying that the dam was built in the course of a huge river like the Ganges or the Padma the natural balance of both upstream and downstream areas will be severely damaged. Thereafter, the Government of India began construction of the Ganges Dam and the digging of feed canals to supply water to the Hooghly and Bagirathi rivers. The length of the feed canal from this dam to Bhagirathi and Hooghly rivers is about 40 km. This reckless project has caused severe environmental catastrophe in the states of Bangladesh, West Bengal and Bihar in India. Under the influence of Farakka, part of the Padma including Bengal has turned into a piece of desert.

As a result of the dam, the Padma has lost its navigability, 2500 km of river paths and 49 tributaries have completely disappeared. The Ganges Basin has undergone tremendous changes in the last four decades since the Farakka Barrage came into operation. The picture of environmental catastrophe is clear today in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh upstream of the Ganges and in the lower reaches of the Sundarbans. Large amounts of silt accumulate upstream of the Ganges and floods occur every year in Uttar Pradesh region including Bihar of India. On the other hand due to the retention of water in the summer season, the normal speed of the river is lost and the downstream Bangladesh is suffering. As a result of the Farakka Dam, millions of people in Bihar are threatened every year. The amount of silt carried by the Ganges towards Bangladesh has come down from 2 billion tons to 1 billion tons. As a result, the formation process of the coastal area at the mouth of the Meghna estuary is being disrupted. If this trend continues, the process of land formation and land acquisition in the coastal areas of Bangladesh will be in jeopardy. Due to this dam, the once defunct Padma is now in a dead state. The green Bengal of this region may soon turn into a desert.

Due to the removal of water from the Ganges during the dry season, there are huge losses in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, industry, shipping, etc. in Bangladesh. In financial terms, Bangladesh loses about 3 billion every year. As the water flow of the Padma is severely reduced in the northern basin of Bangladesh groundwater level in Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj area has dropped by 15 feet instead of 8 to 10 feet. The monsoon rains are not able to meet the water shortage in the region. The process of desertification is caused by the presence of water. Due to lack of water in the dry season, soil moisture has decreased by 35 percent. Lack of humidity increased the day's high and low temperatures. The Gorai river in Bangladesh is completely extinct in this desertification process. Due to the decrease in the flow, the navigability of the river has decreased and as a result large scale floods have to be expected in Bangladesh. In addition, the declining supply of fresh water has a devastating effect on agriculture.

As a result of the drought, the salinity of the soil in Khulna region has increased. Loss of fisheries due to loss of soil moisture, increase in salinity and unavailability of fresh water. Due to uncontrolled flow of water in the Ganges, about two hundred species of fish and 18 species of shrimp are under threat in this area. As a result of declining fish supply, thousands of fishermen have become unemployed.

During the dry season, more than 320 km of waterways in Bangladesh become impassable. Recently, public opinion against India and Farakka is getting stronger because Farakka is now more of a disadvantage than an advantage in Bangladesh. The dam that was built to sustain the Calcutta port, could not be saved 43 years after its construction.

Even the amount of dredging required to keep the port of Calcutta would not have required so much dredging even before the Farakka Dam was commissioned. Before the construction of the dam, the local tribals were told that if the dam was built, there would be no more floods. But the floods have been worse than in the past just because of the dam. Bihar Chief Minister Nitesh Kumar has proposed to break the barrage to stop the year-round floods. But experts and development workers say it is possible to remove the gates of the dam without breaking it and keeping the road and rail communication system intact. In Europe and America, there are many examples of this type of dam being removed if the loss is greater than the profit. Therefore, the immediate removal of this Farakka Dam as a curse for both Bangladesh and India will be beneficial for all.