Nepal and Bangladesh schedule a bilateral talk to discuss water-related issues for Thursday

KATHMANDU, Nepal and Bangladesh are holding secretary-level talks in Kathmandu starting on Thursday. The two-day bilateral talks, which are taking place for the first time in the past 14 years, will be focused on floods and inundation control and agriculture development, among others. Last time, two countries sat for the talk on these issues on February 26 through February 29, 2008.

Sagar Kumar Rai, secretary at the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation (MoEWRI), will be leading the Nepali team while Kabir Bin Anwar, senior secretary at the Ministry of Water Resources, Bangladesh will be leading the Bangladeshi delegates.

Susheel Chandra Acharya, director general of the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation, said the two countries have initiated a joint effort to prevent water-borne disasters. “Nepal is situated at the higher belt, India at the middle and Bangladesh is located at the lower belt of the flood-prone areas. Although Nepal and Bangladesh are not connected directly to common water resources, experience sharing could also help perform result-oriented tasks in the management of water resources,” said Acharya, who is also the team member of the scheduled meeting.

Dr Maheshwor Shrestha, head of the Water Resources Division; Sandeep Kumar Dev, director general of the Department of Electricity Development; Kamal Raj Joshi, director general of the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology and Chiranjivi Chataut, joint-secretary at the Foreign Coordination Division of the MoEWRI, among others, will be the members of the Nepali team to hold talk with Bangladeshi counterparts.