Barak River

• Barak River (Meghna River) originates from Japvo mountain of Manipur hills at an altitude of 3,015 m and flows south through mountainous terrain up to Tipaimukh near the tri-junction of the three states: Assam, Manipur and Mizoram. Here, the river takes a hairpin bend and debouches into the plains of Cacher district of Assam and forms the border of Assam and Manipur states up to Jirimat, a little upstream of Lakhimpur.
• The river then flows through the Barak valley of Assam. From the source to the Indo-Bangladesh border, the Barak River flows for 564 km.
• The river enters Bangladesh as Surma and Kushiyara. Later, the river is called the Meghna and receives the combined flow of the Ganga and Brahmaputra.
• The Barak sub-basin drains areas in India, Bangladesh and Burma.
• Of its length 524 km (326 mi) is in India, 31 km (19 mi) on the Indo–Bangladesh border and the rest is in Bangladesh.
• The upper part of its navigable part is in India — 121 km (75 mi) between Lakhipur and Bhanga, declared as National Waterway 6, (NW-6) since the year 2016.
• The drainage area of the sub-basin lying in India is 41,157 sq. km which is nearly 1.38% of the total geographical area of the country.
  • It is bounded on the north by the Barail range, on the east by the Naga and Lushai hills and on the south and west by Bangladesh.
  • The sub-basin lies in the States of Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Assam, Tripura and Nagaland.
• The principal tributaries of Barak are the Jiri, the Dhaleswari, the Singla, the Longai, the Sonai and the Katakhal.
• Hydropower Potential
  • The Hydro power Potential at 60% load factor for Barak River is 3908 MW.
• Major Projects
  • Tipaimukh Dam Project, Tista Champamati and Dhansiri barrages
• Major Problems
  • Floods are an annual feature in the Brahmaputra-Barak basin where the maximum flood prone area is of the order of 4.33 Million ha.
  • Besides a large number of towns and villages are affected by the erosive action of rivers.

Kushiyara River 

• Kushiyara River is a distributary river in Bangladesh and Assam.
• It forms on the India-Bangladesh border as a branch of the Barak River when the Barak separates into the Kushiyara and Surma.
• The waters of the Kushiyara originate in the state of Nagaland and pick up tributaries from Manipur, Mizoram and Assam.
• The Kushiyara river water agreement signed between India and Bangladesh on September 6 2022.