Dhaka, July 15 (PTI): India and Bangladesh are likely to hold talks in New Delhi next month to finalise the recommendation for striking an interim deal on Teesta water sharing.

The water resources secretaries of India and Bangladesh will hold the meeting in the Indian capital from August 7-9, subject to New Delhi's confirmation of the schedule, media reports said.

"The eighth meeting of the joint committee of experts of the Joint River Commission is scheduled to be held in the first week of August," water resources secretary Syed Mohammad Zobaer told 'New Age'.

The secretary-level meeting, supposed to take place every six months alternately in the two capitals, has remained stalled for about three years after its seventh meeting in Dhaka in September, 2004.

The joint committee of experts, led by the water resources secretaries of the two countries, is assigned for reviewing the flows of seven major common rivers out of 52 that fall into the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh territory, and to make their recommendations for sharing of water.

Bangladesh is criss-crossed by 230 major rivers mostly originating from India while watersharing in common rivers remained to be an outstanding issue of the two neighbours. "But we have moved the bilateral ties to a trajectory, when we can start negotiations on the water issues," foreign affairs adviser of the interim cabinet Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told a water conference in Dhaka yesterday.