Inter linking of rivers: Connecting the rivers or uplifting the rivers in India, so that drought areas can get water and water can be better utilized for irrigation and drinking.
It started in 1972(Still under scrutiny), when irrigation minister proposed agenda to interlink rivers in the Himalayan region. In 1976, another proposal came up with South Indain rivers. Finally, in 1984, because of all these proposals, they founded The National Water Development Agency to scrutinize the positives and negatives of Project and document the same.
Interlinking of rivers is not an easy task. It involves huge costs for building dams and for diverting original river flow, so as to manually control the river canals. By doing this, we can easily transfer water to drought effected areas in the country. NWDA (The National Water Development agency) divided the state into two parts. The upper one is called 1. Himalayan Interlinking and 2.Peninsular Interlinking . In the Himalayan river bed, we have Gangas and Brahmaputra. Here, we have to share the water with nepal and bhutan. In Peninsular river bed, we have Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri. Main objective is to shift the water to deeper south and west by linking these rivers by canals. Though, On pen and paper, it seems like good but not reality. Because the project has positive benefit. But in a contry like India, where the corruption is high at higher level , most of budget is eaten before implementing itself. And government will change in the mean time. Corruption a side, let us look into social and environmental issues.
As we are going to build dams and canals, we need Land. how we are going to get it? As usual, grab it from near by farmers and tribal people for better India. As we know, already Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are fighting for Godavari water. They went to supreme court too. As drought effected areas shifting to sugar production in Maharashtra, They need more and more sugar mills. These sugar mills consume lots of water. As most of the opposition parties are alleging that congress is shifting the water basins to favored politically influenced mills so to maximize their production. This is leading to drinking water problem in some districts. As states are not ready give water or they want reservation before distributing the water to other states. But supreme court warned the states saying that It be nation first then the individual states. But some states are favoring the proposal and some others are opposing for it. Coming to Environmental impact, how we are going to build the Dams and canals? we have to sacrifice some forests and lands of poor farmers and tribal people. As experts say it is like building vision with out base. Most our rivers have surplus water in monsoon only. Comparing data with last decades, Yamuna's surplus has been decreasing in the last few years, a study said. As Brahmaputra flow is very high, only 4-5 percent is diverted during monsoon. And here we have to resolve the issues with other countries first. Coming to peninsular area, The states are already arguing with center to clear the dispute about these water issues.
Country like india needs more and more food to next Generations. So, we need more irrigation land in our country. As of now, our irrigation land is 140 million hectors. To meet the requirements in 2050, we need 160 millions hector irrigation potential. And This is indirectly pointing to economic situation of India. As directed by experts and geologists, we need to look into this issue before implementing. This project as NWDA points if implemented, increases our country's irrigation potential by 35 million hectors. As experts say we need more scrutiny for this issue. As of now, surplus is not effective, when implemented. Though we need irrigation potential, we need more observations and facts. Let us face the facts and wait for some more time.
