Dhaka Mar 04 (V7N) -A team of Bangladeshi experts and officials from the Joint River Commission with India today visited the Ganges at Farakka ahead of talks between the two countries in Kolkata for the renewal of water-sharing treaty of the trans-border river.

The Bangladeshi delegation, led by Md Abul Hossen, member JRC and Md Abu Sayed, director of JRC from Bangladesh side, visited the joint discharge observation sites at Farakka barrage in West Bengal's Murshidabad district which regulates the flow of water to Bangladesh under the bilateral treaty of 1996. The term of the 30-year accord ends next year.

The team, which reached Farakka soon after arriving in Kolkata from Dhaka, will visit the joint inspection sites tomorrow before returning to Kolkata on March 5 for the two-day India-Bangladesh joint committee meeting to be held Hyatt Regency Hotel on March 6 and 7.

The JRC was set up in 1972 to discuss sharing of common rivers.

The bilateral Ganges water-sharing agreement was signed on December 12, 1996 by the then Indian Prime Minister HD Devegowda and former Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina.

It was during Hasina's official visit to New Delhi and talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June last year that the two sides decided to launch negotiations by the joint technical team for a fresh accord on the Ganges water-sharing.

END/MSS/AJ