Bangladesh minister urges Mamata Banerjee to reconsider stand on Teesta water

KOLKATA: Bangladesh shipping minister Shajahan Khan today urged West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to reconsider her stand on sharing Teesta water with his country and hoped that the issue would be resolved soon.

"We hope West Bengal Chief Minister will reconsider her stand on the Teesta water sharing agreement. Without Teesta water we will face a lot of problems," he told reporters here on the sidelines of a seminar on inland waterways.

"We believe that the long-pending Teesta water sharing issue will be resolved. We are hopeful of resolving the issue and the relation between India and Bangladesh will improve," Khan said.

Banerjee had earlier stated, "If we share Teesta water, the people of Siliguri, Jalpaiguri will not get water and the farmers will not be able to carry out agricultural activities."

"I love the people of Bangladesh... They want water and we do not have any objection to it. We can share water from a source which has it. But, we cannot share it from a source which does not have water. I have already put forward an alternative proposal in this regard," Banerjee had said.