indian River Linking Project

Revive the river-linking project




The solution to India’s misery on account of droughts and floods lies in harnessing the water of its national rivers by linking them to each other. This should be done without further delay


The havoc created by the recurring floods and droughts annually in India is indicative of our failure to learn from past mistakes to take corrective actions in managing the abundant water resources we have. The available option of linking the rivers to contain these disasters, the Indian River Linking Project, though recognised three decades back, and a National Plan for interlinking rivers was approved by the Government of India then, not even a single link has been constructed so far. The project is limping from prefeasibility to feasibility studies, from preliminary to detailed investigations, and the stage of construction is nowhere in sight.

The reasons for this state of affairs in the project implementation are not far to seek. The Union Government’s lethargy in taking even the minimum preliminary actions needed in this regard has resulted in the tardy progress.

Presently, the States even within a basin are busy quarrelling with each other on their water rights. There are no basin-wise organisations which could provide a platform for serious discussions among the co-basin States and the Union Government, whenever approached, takes its own time to hold meetings with the disputants to sort out the issues. If there had been a River Basin Organisation in place, the problems could have been settled at the basin level itself.

Such an institution would have been able to bring about consensus among the States regarding all water issues and would have also encouraged them to look beyond water rights to concentrate on water needs for promoting joint ventures in areas like hydropower, flood control, etc, to yield benefits for all.

The National Water Resources Council, chaired by the Prime Minister with the Chief Ministers of the States and Union Territories as members, is the only forum available now to discuss on water issues at the national level. But due to various reasons, the Council’s meetings are rarely held and even at such meetings, decisions are seldom taken.

Though the existing River Board’s Act (1956) has provisions for setting up RBOs, it does not give the requisite authority to the Centre to regulate the inter-State rivers through them .Interestingly, Centre has not empowered itself to set up such organisations with requisite legal backing by amending the Act. Consequently, the disputes are never settled and billions of precious fresh water flows unutilised to the sea every year resulting in the flood-drought syndrome.

The Union Government, whenever confronted with water disputes among the States, takes the usual stand that water is a State subject and Central intervention is possible only by amending the Constitution. Though many high-powered bodies had advised the Centre that ‘Entry 56, List 1’ gives ample powers to the Union Government to regulate inter-State rivers, it does not appear to be inclined to take action using such powers, though the rivers contribute more than 80 per cent of the annual water resources.

It is thus evident that water, which is at the centre of all development activities, is not high enough on the political agenda to promote initiatives to generate benefits.

Due to the uneven distribution of water in space and time leading to endemic and sporadic problems, interlinking of the surplus rivers with deficit ones continues to be the available option to contain the recurring miseries. But, apart from Union Government’s inaction in empowering itself to meet the hurdles in implementing the project, one another constraint is the lack of consensus among States regarding the surplus water availability. Water rich States insist that they have no surplus water to spare and they do not want to negotiate away their future water uses.

To disentangle the issues that complicate the process of negotiations and to accelerate the project implementation, immediate action is needed to set up an RBO for each river basin with a broad mandate and authority for developing the concept of catchment hydro-solidarity among the co-basin States. This would provide the requisite platform for discussions relating to water needs, compensating for water spared, etc, so as to bring about the needed consensus among the partners. By fixing a cost for the water, both the donor and the done States would be encouraged to optimally use and save water through efficient use, facilitating a win-win situation for both through the transfer.

Critics with vested interests have objected to the project raising the bogey of environmental impacts while transferring water from a wet to a dry area, conveniently ignoring the facts prevailing in the existing water transfer projects in the country and abroad. Prophets of doom have condemned the project stating that the IRL canal system would prove to be an open sewer criss-crossing the country. They had earlier made similar forecasts on the Golden Quadrilateral Project, warning that the national highways would become networks of conveyor belts spreading noxious emissions!

Self-appointed ‘eco-Taliban’ in their khap panchayats have also decreed — ‘no dams, no river linking projects’. These critics have only one objective as proved time and again: To remain in the lime light for their continued sustenance. Hence their criticism should be ignored.

Many studies carried out in the past by National Water Development Agency and other expert organisations had confirmed the feasibility of the project. Hence let us not waste time again carrying out too much of analysis to paralyse us into inaction. We have to remain vigilant of the vested interests and embedded activists who are interested only to sabotage the project to achieve their set goals.

The Union Government has no option but to use the available constitutional powers and go in a big way to implement the project without further loss of time. The scene has to shift from rhetoric to action to make the IRL project a reality.
(The Pioneer, dt.8th September, 2010)