Farakka Barrage

The Farakka Barrage is a 2,240-metre barrage built across the Ganga (Ganges) at Farakka in Murshidabad district, West Bengal, roughly 16.5 kilometres upstream of the India–Bangladesh border. Conceived by the British engineer Sir Arthur Cotton's tradition and finalised under independent India, construction began in 1961 and the barrage was commissioned in 1975. Its primary purpose is to divert a portion of Ganga water through a 38-kilometre feeder canal into the Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system to flush silt and preserve the navigability of the Kolkata (Calcutta) Port, which had been silting up. The diversion of dry-season flows, however, immediately created an upstream–downstream dispute, because Bangladesh — then the newly independent lower riparian — depends on the same Ganga waters for irrigation, navigation, fisheries, and salinity control in its southwest, including the Sundarbans and the Gorai distributary.

The barrage operates through 109 gates and feeds a head regulator controlling the feeder canal to the Hooghly. The core legal and diplomatic instrument governing it is the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty of 12 December 1996, signed by Prime Ministers H.D. Deve Gowda and Sheikh Hasina, valid for thirty years and therefore due to expire in 2026. The treaty fixes a sharing formula for the lean season (1 January to 31 May) measured at Farakka: when availability is 70,000 cusecs or less, India and Bangladesh share the flow equally; in the most critical ten-day periods between 11 March and 10 May each side is guaranteed 35,000 cusecs in alternating turns. A Joint Rivers Commission (JRC), established in 1972, monitors implementation, and a joint committee observes flows at Farakka and at Hardinge Bridge inside Bangladesh.

Before 1996 the dispute was managed through short-term arrangements: a 1977 five-year agreement with a "guarantee clause," followed by lapsed Memoranda of Understanding in 1982 and 1985, during which Bangladesh repeatedly internationalised the grievance at the United Nations General Assembly and the South Asian forums. As of 2026 the central live issue is the treaty's renewal or renegotiation, complicated by reduced upstream availability, India's proposed Ganga-Padma interlinking, the political transition in Bangladesh after 2024, and West Bengal's objection to any concession that would affect Kolkata Port and Bengal's irrigation. Sedimentation, riverbank erosion in Malda and Murshidabad, and reduced flushing efficiency have also generated domestic Indian criticism of the barrage's original engineering rationale.

For the exam, the Farakka Barrage is a recurring theme in BCS Bangladesh Affairs and Bangladesh and the World papers, and it appears in UPSC International Relations and Geography. Examiners test the 1996 treaty's sharing formula, the role of the Joint Rivers Commission, the 2026 expiry, and the distinction between the binding 1977 agreement and the lapsed MoUs. A frequent question angle asks candidates to evaluate Farakka as a case study in transboundary river management under customary international law principles of equitable utilisation and no-significant-harm, contrasting it with the Teesta dispute that remains unresolved.