Teesta River. - File Photo

DHAKA, Sept 28, 2025 (BSS)- The International Farakka Committee on Monday 
urged the government of Bangladesh to raise alarm over the issue of repeated 
floods and drought in the country's Teesta Basin due to control of the 
river's flow in India.

As many as four successive waves of flash flood have devastated the Teesta 
basin in Bangladesh this rainy season destroying standing crops and eroding 
crop fields and homesteads of thousands of families in Lalmonirhat, Rangpur, 
Kurigram, Nilphamari, and Gaibandha districts.

The same river is rendered dry during the lean season every year when all its 
water is diverted from Gazal Doba Barrage in West Bengal, India.

Leaders of the International Farakka Committee (IFC) New York, and IFC 
Bangladesh, in a joint statement on Monday, said Bangladesh cannot remain 
silent over the man-made annual environmental disaster that affects life and 
livelihoods of millions of people in the northern parts of the country.

Dhaka should also take proactive steps to start the process of negotiations 
for extending the 30-year Ganges Water Sharing Treaty that will expire in 
December 2026, under a system of integrated basinwide management, IFC said.

Farmers in the Teesta basin areas suffered damage in three waves of flood in 
August when their transplanted Aman seedlings were submerged and damaged. 

The mid-September floods damaged transplanted Aman seedlings again. Erosion 
of crop lands and homesteads with dwelling houses is colossal.

IFC leaders said that the problem of unilateral water diversion from 54 
common rivers can never be solved without raising the issue with India and at 
international forums to stop the process of ecological disasters already set 
in motion in Bangladesh.
 
The joint statement signed by Chairman of IFC, New York Sayed Tipu Sultan, 
its Secretary General Mohammad Hossain Khan, Chief Adviser of IFC Bangladesh 
Professor Jasim Uddin Ahmad, its President Mostafa Kamal Majumder, Senior 
Vice-president Dr. Nazma Ahmad, and General Secretary Sayed Mahmud Hasan 
Mukut.