The World Bank has estimated that US $600 billion is required to repair and improve the world's water delivery systems (UNCSD, 1999). Government of India and its Task Force will do well to pay attention to the exisiting problems instead of creating more colossal problems through its lunatic river linking scheme but our Prime Minister's The Task Force is not fine tuned to the environmental health reality at all.
Digest No. 2
1.Need for Inter Linking River: Prime Minister's Task Force website
One of the most effective ways to increase the irrigation potential for increasing the food grain production, mitigate floods and droughts and reduce regional imbalance in the availability of water is the interlinking of rivers to transfer water from the surplus rivers to deficit areas. Brahmaputra and Ganga "particularly their northern tributaries, Mahanadi, Godavari and West Flowing Rivers originating from the Western Ghats are found to be surplus in water resources.
If we can build storage reservoirs on these rivers and connect them to other parts of the country, regional imbalances could be reduced significantly and lot of benefits by way of additional irrigation, domestic and industrial water supply, hydropower generation, navigational facilities etc. would accrue.
Source:
http://www.riverlinks.nic.in/needs.asp?id=%20::%20About%20Interlinking%20Proposal%20::%20The%20Need 2.Toying with rivers: Editor, Himal South Asian
A frighteningly grandiose plan that proposes to modify nature has suddenly gathered steam in India. The misapplied vision is to transfer water on a subcontinental scale from wet areas to dry. The people who will suffer under this extravagantly stupid idea will be, before anyone else, the people of India, which in any case makes up most of South Asia by population and size. Under the existing political preoccupations in the Indian capital, an idea that has not even been thought through, and which even government scientists secretly pooh pooh, is being allowed to dazzle the masses under the guidance of a Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue who earlier led its youth wing, Suresh Prabhu.
Confronted by his bluster, the entire phalanx of proud and self-confident professionals in India’s bureaucracy, diplomacy and scientific academia have decided to fall silent, if not in line. Their hope is that someone will call the bluff. In [March 2003], Himal published an investigation on how interventions with the rivers’ flow may be contributing to the winter fog over the Indus-Ganga, affecting millions of South Asia’s poorest.
The fact is scientists have yet to study the impact of the run of canals and embankments built over the last half century. And yet, here we are, silent spectators while political cheerleaders sell cart-before-the-horse visions of the Ganga waters reaching the wastes of Rajasthan and beyond. This is not about the debate between small versus large, or being pro- or anti-development (and by extension, being nationalist or anti-national).
The three articles published in Himal magazine by Ramaswamy Iyer, Himanshu Thakkar and Sudhirendar Sharma given below seeks to burst the bubble of the river-linking scheme. Unlike less populated regions of the world, where too engineers have been allowed to tinker with nature, South Asia with its 1.4 billion population just cannot afford to toy with a plan that can go horribly, annihilatingly wrong.
3.. Making of a subcontinental fiasco by Ramaswamy R. Iyer
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http://www.himalmag.com/2003/august/essay.htm 4. Flood of nonsense: How to manufacture consensus for river-linking by Himanshu Thakkar
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http://www.himalmag.com/2003/august/perspective.htm 5. Suresh Prabhu & the art of selling delusions by Sudhirendar Sharma
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http://www.himalmag.com/2003/august/perspective_2.htm 6. Rivers of collective belonging by Ajaya Dixit: Continuing the debate on the river linking proposal of the Government of India, a Kathmandu-based water engineer-turned-social auditor examines the history of the emergence of the hydraulic technocracy in the Subcontinent and the principles on which it operates.
http://www.himalmag.com/2003/october/essay.htm 7. Exaggerated Fears on “Linking Rivers” by BG Verghese and Responses "Need for caution" by Ramaswamy R Iyer, "Verghese in denial" by Himanshu Thakkar and "Arrogance is Transparency" by Sudhirendar Sharma
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http://www.himalmag.com/2003/september/response.htm 8. North East India Excluded from Seminar on River Linking
Chan Mahanta writes: Even I am a bit surprised by the NE's exclusion from this 'summit', mainly because I thought people like Suresh Prabhu and his masters would have become a tad bit more sensitized to the NE's concerns by now. I was ready to trust Prabhu's public assurances that nothing would be done about diverting Assam waters without the approval of its people.
It merely underscores Delhi's imperial attitudes.
The other explanation could be, that like I explained earlier, the Brahmaputra and /or Manas damming and linking with the Kosi in Bihar is such a harebrained propsal, that finally it is beginning to sink in, and therefore the non-invitation of the NE to the 'summit'. That could actually be a good sign.
9. River-linking meet sans NE representative Source: Thev Assam Tribune
GUWAHATI, Oct 14 - A high-level daylong seminar on inter-linking of rivers billed as "First National Media Summit on Interlinking of Rivers: Prospects and Challenges" was held at New Delhi today where not a single representative from this land of the mighty Brahmaputra river was invited. The Union Ministry of Water Resources sponsored the seminar at HUDCO Bhawan at Habitat Centre in the national capital, which was organised by Association of Integrated Social Transformation and Chronicle Society of
India for Education and Academic Research, amongst others.
The All Assam Students Union (AASU) which has taken a strong stand against the proposed river-linking project of the Government of India as the project aims at exploiting the huge pool of water resources of Brahmaputra at the expense of Assam, has alleged that it was seminar organised by the Government of India engaging some NGOs.
The AASU Adviser Samujjal Bhattacharyya told this newspaper that as the organisers failed to invite a single representative from Assam or the entire North East to this high-level seminar, it once again exposed the indifferent attitude of the BJP-led Government at the Centre towards North East.
He said as 50 per cent of the total pool of water resources in the country was from the Brahmaputra and the Ganges, it was outrageous to learn that not a single person was invited to the seminar from Assam or the North East. "It once again exposed the design of the Centre to exploit the water resources of Brahmaputra river without caring to consider the views of the people of the State or the region.
For the Centre the eastern boundary of the country still ends at Kolkata and the North-east is continued to be treated as a colony for the purpose of exploiting its natural resources.
The AASU leader who is now in New Delhi to attend the next round of discussion of the tripartite sub-committee on Assam Accord, informed that the seminar was attended by a battery of prominent personalities and experts including several BJP leaders and the Chairman of the Government of India task force on the rivers interlinking project, Suresh Prabhu.
10. Interlinking Project is a gimmick
Dinesh Mishra writes: I have a very strong feeling that the whole Interlinking Project is a gimmick with no seriousness in it. It is only aimed at diverting the attention of the prople from the issues facing them. Now for all the problems like irrigation, floods, waterlogging, rehabilitation, the conflicts of this side and that side, lower and upper riparians, malfunctioning of the projects, non-implementation of the promises, costs and so on., it is " Surf Excel Hai Naa" type of solution.
I remember, we used to ask politicians and engineers that if there were problems in damming the Kosi or the Gandak, they used to say that these dams are held up because Nepal has to agree. And when we repeated the question by asking , how about North East? There nobody's permission is needed, why not do it there? There was no answer. That is because there are so many things that the Governments do not want to debate or commit.Thye simply want to engage people in unproductive debates and play politics with it.
11. Bridging the gap in Himalayan waters a book Reviewed by BG Verghese
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http://www.himalmag.com/2003/september/review_2.htm 12. "Is there enough water" a review of Ramaswamy R Iyer's book 'Water: Perspectives, Issues, Concerns'
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http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_328923,0011000400070007.htm 13. Some Indian states favour river project
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http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/10/16/d31016012323.htm 14. River-link scheme to benefit Bangladesh: Indian taskforce chief
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http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/10/15/d31015011818.htm 15. Hydro-hegemony: India's inter-basin water transfer plan threatens our eco-existence by Dr K B Sajjadur Rasheed
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http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/10/07/d31007150188.htm 16. Interlinking Rivers by Radha Singh
With reference to Ramaswamy Iyer’s letter (July 12), I once again iterate that stating facts can hardly be deemed to be “uncivil or angry”. I wonder if any of your esteemed readers would view any word, phrase or sentence of my rejoinder (May 10) as being such.
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http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2003&leaf=10&filename=6346&filetype=html 17. Linking Rivers: Submission to the Prime Minister, President & Task Force Chairman and Response from the President and the PM Office
Shekhar Singh
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http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2003&leaf=10&filename=6347&filetype=html 18. 'We've to take states along on river linking' Suresh Prabhu's Interview in The Economic Times
At 50, Suresh Prabhu has the reputation of taking on tough jobs and accomplishing them. As power minister from 2000 to 2002, he pegged away at reform and drafted the Bill that was approved this summer. After quitting the ministry last year, Mr Prabhu was asked to head a task force to interlink rivers, a massive, 16-year project that could cost over $12 billion. In the 1970s, at least two such projects were thought up, but they weren’t feasible. Is Mr Prabhu’s project headed the same way? No, he tells
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=231683 19. Our hands are tied: Centre's water experts
Many water experts in Tamil Nadu are of the view that the Centre has not been pro-active in ensuring effective functioning of the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) or in answering objections regarding the Pamba-Achankovil-Vaippar link despite the link proposal being mooted by a Central body, the National Water Development Agency.
Acknowledging the Centre's position in such issues, C.D. Thatte, secretary-general of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage and member-secretary of the task force on interlinking of rivers, says the law group of the task force is seized of this matter and is looking at various options including making a new law or a Constitutional amendment to enable Central intervention.
Also, some experts say that even under Entry-56 of the Union List (which enables the Centre to regulate and develop inter-State rivers and river valleys to the extent allowed by Parliament), the Centre's role can be enlarged for control of the rivers.
Source:
http://www.hindu.com/2003/10/13/stories/2003101306000100.htm 20. International conference to discuss river-linking project
The conference titled "South Asia Consultation on Water: Options and Challenges" is being organised by Water and Energy User's Federation Nepal
Over 125 officials, experts and activists from Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Pakistan are discussing the impacts of the proposed river linking project by India, at a three-day conference in Kathmandu. The meet is expected to design a program to protest the ambitious project that will have tremendous impact on upper and lower riparian countries
Source: The Himalayan Times, Kantipur daily, nepalnews.com dated October 15, personal communication from Kishore Pradhan, PANOS South Asia
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