After Bangladesh's concern over the $200 billion project made into the minutes of the Indo-Bangla Joint Rivers Commission (JRC) meeting yesterday morning after hours of hectic diplomatic wrangle, the experts called for analysing probable fallout from the plan.

Water Resources Minister Hafizuddin Ahmed and his Indian counterpart Arjun Charan Sethi signed the meeting minutes at 1:15am, expressing their willingness to work together on common river water share.

The agreement on the joint statement text lurched into eight hours of extra time because of serious differences in which India wanted Bangladesh to drop the river-link issue, saying the project was in a conceptual stage.

But Dhaka dug heels saying it wanted to keep the project on the official record as a discussed point.

After nearly 13 hours of tug of war, Sethi read out the debated part of the agreed minutes at a joint press conference.

"Both sides agreed that India's proposed river-link project was raised by Bangladesh to which India replied that it was at conceptual stage and that there was nothing to discuss the matter," he said.

Hafizuddin said, "India has told us it was at a very early stage and we must allow them time."

Asked if India would consult with Bangladesh at a later stage of the project, Sethi said, "Let the report of the taskforce (set up for the project) come first."

GAUGING FALLOUT

Professor Zahiruddin Chowdhury of the Institute of Flood Control and Drainage Research (IFCDR), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, underscored gathering relevant data.

"Now we have to get down to the task of gathering technical and hydrological data because we don't know for sure what amount of the Ganges waters India is planning to divert from its eastern part to western part and what amount of the Brahmaputra waters to which directions."

Professor Ainun Nishat hoped the Bangladesh delegation would embark on a quantitative analysis of the probable adverse effects of the river-link project on return.

Prof Nishat, now country representative of International Union of Nature Conservation, also stressed formulation of a long-term strategy on the basis of national consensus with talks with experts.

Prior to leaving Delhi for Kolkata, Hafizuddin described the talks as going "one step ahead" in resolving the complicated problem of water sharing between the two neighbours.

Asked whether he was happy with the JRC meeting outcome, he said: "Rome was not built in a day."

In West Bengal, Hafizuddin would see the joint observation sites at Farakka Barrage and have a meeting with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya.

At the JRC meeting, held with a gap of over two and a half years, Bangladesh picked up the issue of receiving less share of the Ganges waters during the lean period.

India, however, said water was being shared between the two countries according to the 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty.

On the river-link project, India assured Bangladesh of talks on submission of a report by a taskforce headed by former Indian power minister Suresh Prabhu.

On Tipaimukh Dam on the Barak in eastern India, the Indian side assured Bangladesh of having prior talks if it diverted water elsewhere drying up the Surma and Kushiara in Sylhet, the feeders to the Meghna.

India said it was building a hydroelectric plant there for irrigation to Assam and Tripura.

Hafizuddin told BBC Radio last night that Bangladesh raised its objection to the construction of any barrage at Tipaimukh point.

About sharing waters of 53 other common rivers, the two sides agreed to place the Joint Experts' Committee's (JEC) report on Teesta waters before the JRC later this year.

The Indo-Bangla JRC that last met in Dhaka in January 2001 will sit for talks again in the Bangladesh capital early next year.