Interlinking of Rivers in India

India, with its geographical area of 329 million hectares but consisting of only 2.45 per cent of the earth’s land mass, supports a population of about 1.2 billion as per the 2011 census. This is about 17 per cent of the global population. The renewable fresh water resources of India at 1869 billion cubic metres (BCM) per year is only about 4 per cent of the earth’s fresh water resources. Thus average Indian has hardly one-sixth of land and one-fourth of water as compared to the world average.
There are more inequities in the distribution of the water resources. The total renewable water resources as of the year 2001 correspond to about 1820 kilo litres (KL) of water per person per year. The population of India is expected to stabilize at around 1500-1800 million by 2050 when the per capita availability of water would further come down to nearly 60 per cent of the availability as in 2001. At that time, the per capita availability in the Brahmaputra basin would still be around 9000 KL and in the Sabarmati basin below 200 KL. This is against the minimum requirement of 1000 KL per person per year.
In view of the large variations in rainfall over space and time, the country experiences frequent floods in some parts and severe droughts in some others. Floods are a recurring feature particularly in the Brahmaputra and Ganga rivers which carry 60 per cent of the water resources of our country. Flood damages, which were of the order of Rs. 52 crore in 1953, went up to Rs. 5846 crore in 1998 with an annual average of Rs. 1343 crore, affecting Assam, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh besides causing untold human sufferings. On the other hand, large areas in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu face recurring droughts.

 River Interlinking Plan
In order to make better use of the country’s water resources, a grand plan for interlinking rivers has been proposed that will make inter-basin transfer of water possible.
The river interlinking project was the brainchild of the NDA government and in October 2002, the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had formed a task force to get the project going against the backdrop of the acute drought that year. A Centre-appointed task force had in a report recommended division of the project into Peninsular and Himalayan components.
The Peninsular component, involving the rivers in southern India, envisaged developing a 'Southern Water Grid' with 16 linkages. This component included diversion of the surplus waters of the Mahanadi and Godavari to the Pennar, Krishna, Vaigai and Cauvery. The task force had also mooted the diversion of west-flowing rivers of Kerala and Karnataka to the east, the interlinking of small rivers that flow along the west coast, south of Tapi and north of Mumbai and interlinking of the southern tributaries of Yamuna.
The Himalayan component envisaged building storage reservoirs on the Ganga and the Brahmaputra and their main tributaries both in India and Nepal to conserve water during monsoon for irrigation and generation of hydropower, besides checking floods.
30 links were identified as technically feasible and economically viable on the basis of pre-feasibility studies. These are: Mahanadi (Manibhadra – Godavari (Dowlaiswaram) link, Godavari (Inchampalli Low Dam) – Krishna link, Godavari (Inchampalli) – Krishna (Nagarjunasagar) link, Godavari (Polavaram) – Krishna (Vijayawada) link, Krishna (Almatti) – Pennar link, Krishna (Srisailam)- Pennar link, Krishna (Nagarjunasagar) – Pennar (Somasila) link, Pennar (Somasila) –Cauvery (Grand Anicut) link, Cauvery (Kattalsi)- Vaigai-Gundar link, Ken-Belwa link, Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal link, Par-Tapti-Narmada link, Damanganga-Pinjal link, Bedti-Varda link, Netravati-Hemavati link and Pamba-Achankovil-Vaippar link.

Similarly, based on various water balance studies carried out for the Himalayan component, the link proposals identified for preparation of feasibility reports include the Manas-Sankosh-Tista-Ganga link, Kosi-Ghagra link, Ghagra-Yamuna link, Sarda-Yamuna link, Yamuna-Rajasthan link, Rajastan-Sabarmati link, Chunar-Sone Barrage link, Sone Dam – Southern Tributaries of Ganga link, Ganga-Damodar-Subernarekha link, Subernarekha-Mahanadi link, Kosi-Mechi link, Farakka-Sunderbans link, and Jogigopa-Tista-Farakka link.

Conceptually, the project is the largest of its kind anywhere in the world and will handle four times more water than the Three Gorges Dam in China, five times all inter-basin water transfers completed in the US, and more than six times the total transfer of the six inter-basin water trans- fer projects already operational in India, namely Sarda-Sahayak, Beas-Sutlej, the Madhopur-Beas link, the Kurnool-Cudappa ca- nal, the Periyar Vegai link and the Telugu Ganga link.
Projected Benefits
Interlinking of rivers in India is expected to:

1. Greatly reduce the regional imbalance in the availability of water in different river basins. Surplus water which flows waste to the sea would be fruitfully utilized. It is assessed that the inter-linking of rivers will provide additional irrigation benefits to 35 million hectares (Mha) -25 Mha from surface water and an additional 10 Mha from increased ground water recharge- which will be over and above the ultimate irrigation potential of 140 Mha envisaged from the conventional irrigation projects.
2. Construction of storage dams as proposed will considerably reduce the severity of floods and the resultant damages. The flood peaks are estimated to reduce by about 20 to 30 per cent in the Ganga and Brahmaputra basins.
3. The benefits of drought mitigation from inter-basin water transfers will accrue to an area of about 25 lakh hectares in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
4. Hydro power could also be generated on a massive scale by the storage dams proposed under the interlinking of rivers. Hydro power development has not kept pace with the potential and requirement in our country. Against a potential of 84,000 MW, only about 22,000 MW capacity for hydro power generation has been developed so far. For an efficient working of electrical energy generating system, the mix of thermal to hydro should be about 60:40. In our country it is about 75:25. The storage dams proposed under interlinking of rivers will greatly improve this situation. The total hydro power potential of the interlinking systems is estimated to be 34,000 MW.
5. A major part of the future requirements of big cities will have to be met from long-distance inter-basin transfer of water. In the link proposals under study, water supply to Mumbai and Delhi and many other villages and habitations enroute the link canals are proposed to be raised.

 Arguments against the Project

1. India has one of the lowest yield of cereals at 2134kg/hectare of land. Hence expanding the irrigated land area is only one way of increasing food production. Another way may be changes in farming technology, the kind of crops grown (generally hybrid varieties use more water than the indigenous varieties), better management of available land and water.
2. Indiscriminate irrigation over a period of time can also lead to problems like water logging and rise in salinity in soil. Hence, besides increasing the area under irrigation, implementation of mixed agriculture and other such techniques of sustainable agriculture need to be emphasized on.
3. The 34,000 MW of hydro-power that is supposed to be generated as a result of this project may be an overestimation as in most cases of inter basin transfer, the requirement for pumping water across basins exceeds that produced by tapping the potential energy of the water. The pumping energy requirement is exceptionally high in this case as water will be pumped across the entire length and breadth of the country.
4. It is now generally acknowledged that big dams play only a modest role in flood moderation. Flood cushion tends to get eaten into by the more powerful demands of irrigation and power generation. The safety of structures sometimes necessitates the release of waters causing ‘man-made’ floods downstream.
5. Floods in moderation have certain benefits too. They are a free source of minerals for the land, help in recharging groundwater resources, help in conservation of biological diversity, give bumper harvests, flush out silt from riverbeds to deltas, prevent intrusion of saline water from the Sea and most importantly wash out saline deposits on the top soil. So what has been termed as ‘surplus’ is not really surplus. It is performing salient functions which are extremely important for the preservation of ecological balance and is helpful for the farmers.
6. The project aims at mitigating drought by transferring water from ‘surplus’ to ‘deficit’ areas. The problem of drought is something that we have a solution to already in the form of rainwater harvesting structures. Also, even if the Linking of rivers project is implemented, it will take water to only a fraction of the drought prone areas, large parts of rain fed areas will remain unaffected.
7. The cost of the project has been estimated at 112 billion USD at 2002 prices. However, it is estimated and accepted widely that the cost may go up to 200 billion USD. Other sources cite that large projects have had cost overruns in the region of 400-500%.
8. Apart from estimated cost, recurring expenditure would be incurred in maintenance of dams, de silting reservoirs, relining canals and creating artificial drainage where needed. External costs like those arising from harm done to the environment, ecology, wildlife and social costs have not been taken into account.
9. This project will involve coordination between not just States but also countries. Dams will need to be built in Nepal and Bhutan, in order to store the surplus water and later divert it to deficit regions. Water that flows into Bangladesh will now be diverted from upstream by India. Both Nepal and Bangladesh have not been taken into confidence regarding the project as of now. This has the potential of future conflict with these countries. This could also lead to a conflict between India and China in the future as China controls the flow of water in the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej Rivers. China is considering a proposal to build a dam on Yarlung Tsangpo (which becomes Brahma putra in India) which will generate 40000 megawatts of energy (more than twice generated by the Three Gorges dam). If this project goes through, the entire equation of ‘surplus’ and ‘deficit’ in India will change. This project and other similar grand projects being planned by China have the capacity to completely throw India’s plans off the mark. Within India, a number of inter- state conflicts over water, remain unresolved for decades now (for example the Cauvery Tribunal). The Interlinking project, which runs canal from almost every state of India, could become a major source of contention between the Sates rather than uniting them.
10. From a humanitarian perspective, millions of people will be forcibly displaced by this project. A sound rehabilitation and resettlement program for these people needs to be put in place. It has been estimated that 21-56 million people have been displaced by large dams over the past 50 years in India, 40% of them tribal people. Less than 50% of those displaced were rehabilitated.
11. The approach of this project is a centralized one where the government takes everything into its own hands and tries to come up with one solution for all problems. While this project has its projected benefits, there is no single benefit that cannot be achieved in an alternative way.

Supreme Court Ruling
On February 27, the Supreme Court asked the government to implement the ambitious interlinking of the rivers project in a time-bound manner to tackle drought and flood in various parts of the country. The court also appointed a high-powered committee for planning and implementation of the project.
A bench comprising Chief Justice SH Kapadia, Justice AK Patnaik and Justice Swatanter Kumar said the Centre and concerned state governments should participate for the effective implementation of the project "in a time bound manner".
It appointed a high-powered committee, comprising representatives of various government departments, ministries, experts and social activists to chart out and execute the project. The committee will comprise the water resources minister, secretary, environment secretary and four expert members appointed by the water resources ministry, finance ministry, Planning Commission and environment ministry. Representatives from state governments, two social activists and senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, who has been assisting the court in the case, will also be members of the committee.
The court had taken up the case on the basis of an 18 July 1994 Hindustan Times article.
Later, based on several discussions over the need for improved and better access to water, amicus curiae (friend of the court) Kumar filed an application to examine the possibility of river interlinking.
In 2002, Kumar made an application to the court in the Yamuna case based on the speech of then president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on how India could possibly better manage its water re- sources.
The court converted Kumar's application into a full-scale petition and heard it out separately.