1. INTRODUCTION “Little drops of water make a mighty ocean” “Water, water every where, not a drop to drink” hese well known sayings, referring to both the ii) Second, it would mitigate the annual floods in Tconstitution of water and its uses for humankind, Ganga and Brahamputra. illustrate clearly an inherent flaw in the availability of iii) Third, it would add 34,000 MW of hydropower to water all over the world. Although 75% of the earth’s the national pool. surface is covered with water, only a miniscule proportion The passing observation of the President A.P.J. Abdul of it is available for human needs as fresh water. With so less water available and most of it polluted and Kalam, on the eve of Independence day 2002, depleted, disputes over the use of fresh water are set the momentum for interlinking of rivers, hitherto a dormant idea. This prompted one advocate, Ranjit becoming very common.1 Today in India, water is one of the two most Kumar, to attach the copy of Kalam’s speech with a important sources of conflict. The other is religion. The Public Interest Litigation (PIL), which he had filed for the cleaning of Yamuna. Thus in August 2002 ranking of these issues is location– specific. The political system of India is based on multi-party democracy. for the first time, the issue came up in the Supreme Court. Justice B. N. Kirpal, the then Chief Justice of India Every political party gives a top slot to water resource development in its election manifesto. Every candidate, who was heading the bench responded so contesting the election, promises a water project to his/ enthusiastically that he converted the PIL for cleaning of the Yamuna into an independent writ petition and her constituency. The availability of water is seldom taken into consideration when making these electoral issued notices to the Centre and the States for promises. interlinking of rivers. When the matter came up again on 31 October 2002, Non-availability can always be attributed to some one upstream who can be shown as having only the Centre and Tamil Nadu endorsed the Court’s appropriated all the water, a ripe case for conflict. initiative. The absence of response from all but one State did not deter justice Kirpal and other Judges from Water is an easily exploitable issue in electoral politics. The potential for conflict had always existed historically, pursuing the task which they took with missionary but the political leadership facilitated the negotiations. zeal. On the contrary, the learned judges ruled that in the absence of affidavits from other States, the Over the years, this spirit has changed to rigid postures, with every State rushing to overexploit water and assumption was clearly that they do not oppose the accusing neighbours of “stealing” their share. plan made in the Writ Petition and there is consensus among all of them that there should be inter-linking of Given this political environment, it is not surprising that the national river interlinking plan has been rivers in India. offered as a miracle solution to water scarcity, primarily The order passed on 31 October 2002 formed the basis on which the Centre set up a high powered Task with the following claims: Force under Mr. Suresh Prabhu, former Union Minister i) First, interlinking would lead to a permanent of Power. The irony is that the very order that drought proofing of the country by raising the presumed an all India consensus on the subject went on irrigation potential to equal the current net sown record to suggest how the Task Force would go into area of about 150 million hectares. bringing consensus among the States. 1 Another irony about this far-reaching order is that Calcutta Port is so silted that crores of rupees have been there is no mention of the 10 years deadline, though the invested to build another port at Haldia. It was to deadline is presented as part of the project. Justice Kirpal overcome the silting of the Calcutta Port that the Farakka was cautious enough not to put the deadline in writing barrage was constructed to divert more water to the lest it raise delicate Constitutional questions of the Indian stream. While Farakka has led to drastically Court’s jurisdiction in the realm of executive policy. reduced water flows to Bangladesh and resulted in Interlinking of Rivers as a solution for drought and constant diplomatic tension with that country, it has not flood is not a new proposal. It was Sir Arthur Cotton been able to save the Calcutta Port. One may be tempted who had originally proposed the networking of rivers to ask: Does the Ganga really have surplus water? more than a century ago, and Dr. K. L. Rao, the i) One, the source of the river is drying up, like Minister of Power and Irrigation in the Cabinet of almost all the other Himalayan rivers. It is well Smt. Indira Gandhi, revived this proposal in 1972. known that Gangotri Glacier which feeds the river Both were no doubt eminent engineers. Sir Cotton’s has receded by over 14 km in the last century prime concern was for inland navigational network alone. and Dr. Rao’s concern was for irrigation and power. Neither could perceive that far wider issues were ii) Second, increasing amounts of the river’s water are involved.2 already being used for irrigation as well as urban needs. Mr. Rao presented his plan to link the Ganga and Cauvery. In 1974, a similar proposal ‘Garland Canal’ iii) Third, almost half of the Ganga’s water at Patna was submitted by Captain Dinshaw J. Dastur, an air originates in Nepal which has its own plans to pilot. The Government prepared its own plan in 1980 develop hydrological resources. Once these come and in 1982; the National Water Development Agency up, flows would be further reduced in the Ganga. (NWDA) was set up to carry out detailed studies. It Similar facts do not justify the claims that envisioned a 30 year plan but following the Supreme Brahamputra, the Mahanadi and the Godavari are Court directive, the Task Force has published a time water surplus. In any case, the riparian states through table which lists 2016 as the date for completion. No which these rivers pass have their own plans to use this explanation has been provided how this is to be “surplus water”. This puts another question mark on managed. Such a project should have been preceded by the schemes political feasibility. Try visualizing Punjab a study of: parting with its water for Tamil Nadu to use, when i) Financial Viability neighboring Karnataka almost refused to obey the Supreme Court on this issue. ii) Technological Capability On the ecological front, consider the fall-out of iii) Ecological Sustainability building 200 large water storage reservoirs and an extensive network of canals. Linking these rivers and iv) Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment. storage reservoirs would eat into the natural habitats The NWDA plan has divided the project into two of wild life and re-shape the ecology of the country broad ‘components’ - the Himalayan part with 14 river with unknown consequences. There are no estimates links estimated at Rs. 375,000 crores and the Peninsular regarding the number of people who would be component with 17 river links estimated at Rs. 185,000 dislocated, estimates vary from lakhs to a few crores. crores. This would surely add to the political as well as Not only does the economics of the plan appear to economic costs of the project. be extremely improbable, but serious reservations are These rivers do have massive flood flows – estimated also raised about its claims. Let us look at two of these at 30,000 to 60,000 cubic metres of water per second claims, that of flood control and the assumption that (cusec) during a few days in the monsoon. The plan the Ganga, Brahamputra, Mahanadi and Godavari are envisions tapping these flood flows, storing these in the “water surplus”. reservoirs and draining this water over thousands of From being a river which supported inland trade and kms of canals to “parched” agricultural lands in passenger traffic 150 years ago, the Ganga has become Southern, Western, and Central India. While this may a silt-choked shadow of its former self. The British used sound good, the fine analysis reveals that only 1,500 it to ship their troops from Bengal to Kanpur and Delhi cusec water is to be lifted from a total flood flow of during the 1857 war of independence. Today, the 60,000 cusec. How lifting only 2.5% of water flow can 2 solve, or even mitigate floods is a mystery. The other dams and embankments. In the US alone, more than 100 issue not being raised is why water rich reparians like dams were removed between 1999 and 2002. In 2001, the Cauvery basin and Cauvery delta are today over 115 miles of the river Baraboo were restored in “parched” and water-scarce. Wisconsin. Attempts are now on to revive the Colorado Capturing all the water of a river and stopping its in the Southwestern US as its waters dry up before natural flow to divert it outside the basin is tantamount reaching the ocean. An $ 8 billion plan has been passed to killing it. Countries with a history of playing around in California to revive some of its rivers. In Spain, with rivers and trying to control them, are now protests have stalled the second phase of water transfer 3 investing billions of dollars to restore them by removing from the Ebro river to the country’s south.