The Bangladeshi parliamentary delegation leaving for the site of the proposed Tipaimukh dam in Manipur left for India on Wednesday.
The team will ask for India’s assurances that it will not withdraw water from the Barak River through any irrigation project.
The delegation is headed by former water resources minister Abdur Razzak, is scheduled to being their trip in New Delhi and then make a trip to the dam’s proposed construction site before returning to the capital. They are expected to make a report outlining the situation upon their arrival in Bangladesh.
The 10-member delegation, comprising six lawmakers, three officials and only one water expert, will hold talks with Indian officials at the water resources and energy ministries.
The oppositional Bangladesh National Party (BNP) did not send any of its partymembers on the team despite an ongoing political battle to create a bipartisan delegation.
But Bangladeshi environmentalists and water experts said
that if the multi-purpose dam project is implemented, it will cause ecological
imbalance in downstream Bangladesh.