---
title: "Bangladesh-India: Rivers, Trade, Connectivity"
description: "Examine Bangladesh-India ties through water-sharing treaties, trade balance, and connectivity corridors, the core BCS material on the relationship defining"
url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/lessons/bcs-bangladesh-in-world-bangladesh-and-india-rivers-trade-connectivity"
---

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Bangladesh and India: rivers, trade & connectivity

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# Bangladesh and India: rivers, trade & connectivity

Bangladesh-India ties through water-sharing treaties, trade balance, and connectivity corridors—core BCS material on the relationship that defines Dhaka's foreign policy.

## The transboundary river question

Bangladesh and India share 54 transboundary rivers, and water-sharing is the most enduring structural irritant in the relationship. The defining instrument is the **Ganges Water Sharing Treaty of 12 December 1996**, signed by Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and H.D. Deve Gowda for a 30-year term (expiring 2026). It governs the dry-season distribution of the Ganges at the **Farakka Barrage**, commissioned by India in 1975 about 18 km upstream of the Bangladesh border. The treaty's Annexure I fixes a sharing formula for the lean period of 1 January to 31 May: when flow at Farakka is 70,000 cusecs or less, India and Bangladesh each receive 50 percent; a guarantee clause assures Bangladesh 35,000 cusecs in alternating ten-day periods during the critical 1 March to 10 May window.

## The Teesta deadlock

The **Teesta River** dispute remains unresolved. An interim sharing arrangement was negotiated and ready for signature during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Dhaka visit in **September 2011**, but it collapsed at the last moment owing to objections from West Bengal Chief Minister **Mamata Banerjee**, who controls the riparian state under India's federal structure. The proposed deal would have allotted Bangladesh roughly 37.5 percent and India 42.5 percent of the dry-season flow. The episode illustrates a recurring BCS theme: India's federalism means that state-level politics (West Bengal, Tripura, Assam) can veto bilateral agreements, complicating Dhaka's diplomacy.

## Floods, the Tipaimukh question and the Joint Rivers Commission

Bangladesh, as the lower riparian on the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin—the world's second-largest river system by discharge—is acutely vulnerable to upstream withdrawal and to floods. The **India-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission (JRC)**, established in **1972** under the framework of the friendship treaty, is the institutional mechanism for managing shared waters; it has met intermittently and was revived at the secretary level in 2022. Bangladesh has long voiced concern over India's proposed **Tipaimukh hydroelectric dam** on the Barak River in Manipur, fearing downstream impacts on the Surma and Kushiyara. In 2019 the two sides signed an MoU on withdrawal of water from the **Kushiyara River**, a modest but symbolically important step.

Candidates should retain the legal-diplomatic distinction: water-sharing operates bilaterally, outside any binding multilateral convention, because India is not a party to the **1997 UN Watercourses Convention**. This leaves Bangladesh reliant on bilateral negotiation and the principle of equitable utilisation rather than enforceable international adjudication—a vulnerability examiners frequently probe.

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