Bangladesh will send a 10-member parliamentary delegation to India next week to discuss the issue of cross-border Tipaimukh Dam as Dhaka again expressed its concern over the project on Barak River in Manipur.
The delegation to be led by parliamentary standing committee chairman on water resources ministry Abdur Razzak is set to leave Dhaka on a week-long visit to New Delhi and the project site at Manipur state on July 15, officials shared.
Razzak was not available for comments as he was abroad on a personal tour but officials familiar with the process said the delegation included a lawmaker from fundamentalist Jamat-e-Islam but the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party did not nominate any of their legislators in the team.
"The delegation will first visit New Delhi for talks with Indian water resources minister and other concerned officials and then go to the Manipur state to see the site," an official of the water resource ministry said.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni yesterday carried a letter from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in New Delhi conveying Dhaka's concern about the dam, which is widely feared to be affecting the ecosystem and livelihood in lower riparian Bangladesh.
India, however, reassured that nothing would be done to harm the interests of Bangladesh when Moni met External Affairs Minister S M Krishna.
The developments came as Water Resource Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen yesterday told reporters that Bangladesh was yet to get the Indian Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report on the project, which falls under "red category" in terms of environmental risk categorization.
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"They (India) gave us a report on the dam but it contains nothing about the environmental issues. It is not the EIA report," Sen was quoted by the Samakal newspaper today. In a related development, instead of sending their representative along with the parliamentary delegation, BNP decided to send letters to the government of different states and international organisations for creating "public opinion" against the Indian plan to build Tipaimukh dam.
"We want to draw attention of international community to Tipaimukh dam," the Daily Star newspaper quoted a party spokesman as saying after a standing committee meeting of the party chaired by Zia yesterday.
Zia, however, sent a letter to the Indian premier expressing her concern about the negative impact of the hydropower dam while Moni urged New Delhi to keep suspended the project works until the visit of the parliamentary delegation.