Water resources ministry sources said New Delhi in a recent communication to Dhaka argued that it expects a secretarial level JRC meeting before the ministerial one.

India said some issues, such as the formula of water sharing of Teesta River and erection of dam in its part of Muhuri River, have to be settled before the ministerial meet, the sources added.

However, it was India's alleged lack of response that led to cancellation of a meeting of the Joint Committee of Experts (JCE), which works under the JRC, last month to discuss water sharing of the 54 common rivers including Teesta.

It is one year since the last JRC meeting took place in August 2003 in New Delhi, though the 1972 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty dictates four JRC meetings to be held every year.

Officials of the water resources ministry said they had written to their Indian counterparts several times urging them to hold a JRC meeting immediately but without any positive response from New Delhi.

Bangladesh very soon will send a reminder to its big neighbour about holding a JCE meeting, they added.

"We will write to them soon to reschedule the talk," said M Omar Faruque Khan, secretary of the water resources ministry.

The JCE headed by the water resources secretaries of the two neighbours has been working for the last seven years to find out ways for a permanent or long-term formula of bilateral water sharing of seven important rivers -- Teesta, Dharala, Dudhkumar, Monu, Khowai, Gomti and Muhuri.

"We are very much optimistic about resolving the issue at bilateral level. But our Indian counterparts are not in the right track and are not taking the inconveniences [their acts are causing] to Bangladesh into consideration," said a top government policymaker asking not to be named.

As the water flow in the Teesta, one of the major common rivers, in the lean season (November to May) has dwindled to 300 to 400cusecs from 5,000cusecs over the last few years, Bangladesh wants an immediate agreement to save its ecological balance and get its due share.

Bangladesh's policymakers allege, since inception of the JCE in 1997, 'no significant progress has been made in resolving the water sharing issue due to the headstrong attitude of our neighbour'.

In different parleys of the JRC, Bangladesh has repeated asked for an immediate agreement on sharing the Teesta water in line with the provisions of the 30-year Ganges Water Sharing Treaty. But, India all through has maintained a shrewd stance saying, before reaching such an agreement, 'it needs a five-year scientific study to examine the water flow in Teesta'.

The Article IX of the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty said bilateral treaties would be drawn up for water sharing of all common rivers.

Faruque Khan yesterday expressed concern at India's dilly-dallying, which has pushed the whole issue of equitable water sharing of the common rivers into uncertainty. He told The Daily Star Bangladesh wants joint management of all the common rivers as soon as possible, because, "it is a question of our survival as we live downstream."