Months of severe drought in parts of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, followed by devastating floods in Assam, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka have brought the National River Linking Project back on the table. The highly ambitious and massively costly project (estimated to cost Rs 5,60,000 crore on various interlinking) is touted to solve India’s water problems (addressing both flood and drought) by linking rivers by a network of reservoirs and canals. The idea is to divert the waters from areas that get excess to those that are water-starved. The National Water Development Agency, which deals with this project, has identified 16 links in peninsular region and 14 links in the Himalayan to transfer water. 15,000 km of new canals will have to be added to relocate 174 BCM of water. The initial plan to interlink India’s rivers came in 1858 from a British irrigation engineer, Sir Arthur Thomas Cotton. It has made little progress since then. Only in 2015, did the first linking take shape involving the rivers Krishna and Godavari. The feasibility report for the Manas-Sankosh-Tista-Ganga link involving Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Bhutan is in progress. Benefits of the project The bright side includes irrigation, flood prevention and generation of electricity. If completed, the project could enable the generation of 34000 megawatt of power. It will also improve fisheries and pollution control. Shortcomings But the plan has received mixed responses from experts and activists. The shortcomings include displacement of 1.5 million people as more than 27 lakh hectares land will be submerged in the process. India’s water resources have been divided into 12 major basins. While the storage of the Ganga basin is good, that of Indus and Krishna are not so. The inequality in the distribution is stark. Climate change is another concern. The project is planned with the hope that the donor basin will have surplus to spare. What if the monsoon fails or due to climate change, situations transform in the perennial system? The whole concept will be a failure. The project requires construction of complex channels of canals and dams, building of which would lead to deforestation. Questions pertaining to the operations also remain unanswered — how much water will be shifted and when? Whether the changes may cause logging or desertification? Whether the technology will have ecological impact? These and many have caused experts to approach the concept with cynicism.
2016, The Hindu