Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The two-month-old task force on interlinking of rivers has just been given a floor in a South Delhi office complex. This is going to be the place from where its chairman Suresh Prabhu hopes to see the project through 8212; of connecting 37 rivers, through 31 links and 9,000 km of canals, to create irrigation potential for an additional 150 million hectares in the next decade. Electricity and navigation are its fringe benefits. What initially seemed a dream is now being flouted as a great vision that will help solve hunger, thirst, poverty and unemployment.
In cold storage since 1980, its inspiration in its new avtaar is the Prime Minister8217;s National Highways project. In love with big numbers, politicians across the spectrum are more and more inclined to ask less and less questions.
STATES: DREAMING THE DREAM
| How it all happened |
|
Manoj Mitta It all began with a passing observation President A P J Abdul Kalam made last year in his address to the nation on the eve of the Independence Day. Listing out problems that required urgent attention, Kalam pointed out to the anomaly of some states perpetually facing drought while some others are ravaged by floods every year. This prompted senior advocate Ranjit Kumar to file a copy of Kalam8217;s speech along with an application in a PIL before the Supreme Court on the clean-up of Yamuna. The application filed in August 2002, thus, raised the issue of networking of rivers for the first time in the Supreme Court. A bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India, B N Kirpal, responded so enthusiastically that it in fact converted Kumar8217;s application into an independent writ petition and issued notices to the Centre and all the states on the need to network rivers. This sudden turn of events caught most of the states unaware. When the matter again came up for hearing on October 31, the court found that, apart from the Centre, Tamil Nadu was the only state ready with a response. As it happened, both the Centre and the perpetually water-deficient Tamil Nadu heartily endorsed the court8217;s initiative in this regard. The absence of response from all but one state did not deter Kirpal and his colleagues from pursuing what they clearly took up with a missionary zeal. On the contrary, the apex court ruled that in the absence of affidavits from other states, 8216;8216;the presumption clearly is that they do not oppose the prayer made in this writ petition and it must be regarded that there is a consensus amongst all of them that there should be inter-linking of rivers in India.8217;8217; Story continues below this ad The brief six-page order passed on October 31 formed the basis on which the Centre set up a high powered task force under Suresh Prabhu. The irony is, the very order that presumed an all-India consensus on the subject went on to record that the task force would 8216;8216;go into the modalities for bringing consensus among the states.8217;8217; Another great irony about this far-reaching order is that there is no clue anywhere in it of the headline-hitting 10-year deadline Kirpal set that day for implementing the project. For all his activism, Kirpal was cautious enough not to put that deadline in writing lest it raises delicate constitutional questions of the court8217;s jurisdiction in the realm of executive policy. |
With backing from the Supreme Court, the President, the Prime Minister and the leader of opposition, the states 8212; even the Opposition-ruled ones 8212; have begun to dream the dream themselves. After three meetings with the task force and another one coming up soon with the PM, the majority of states are setting up their own technical committees to study the project further.
Maharashtra and Kerala have some reservations. Earlier Andhra Pradesh denied they had excess water in Godavari to be transmitted down South to Cauvery. Now they too have changed their stance.
Even the National Commission, which submitted its report in 2000, was not fully convinced about the inter-basin links initially, maintaining that the government should experiment with smaller intra-basin links and move on to bigger things only if it succeeded. 8216;8216;Nobody ever imagined that we would have the railway network the way we have it now, the same is with the rivers. We have to begin from somewhere,8217;8217; says A D Mohile, who was Chairman Central Water Commission and member of the National Commission, now.
TASK FORCE: WALKING THE TALK?
The first step towards this gigantic task means daily meetings with the experts, the industry and the politicians. Meetings have already been held with CII, IITs and IIMs. The task force is scheduled to come out with a white paper and a website on the project.
Already, it is clear that this money will not come from budgetary allocation. Says Additional Secretary, Water Resources, Radha Singh: 8216;8216;The private sector will be pitching in8217;8217;.
The CII, after studying the 54 million Three Gorges project, which links northern rivers to southern ones in China, has started discussing money with state governments. It is also setting up its own water committee. 8216;8216;With the Supreme Court8217;s directives, we are in business,8217;8217; says V Raghuraman, senior energy advisor, CII.
CIVIL SOCIETY: PROBING QUESTIONS
At a recent NGO meeting in the capital, apart from ecological and human dimension, environmentalists probed the government8217;s record in the water sector. Their searching questions:
Has irrigation ever been a priority with the Central government?
Are we using the existing irrigation projects to the fullest to justify this mega-project?
What happens to the on-going projects which have been languishing for years for want of funds?
|
TIME LINE
|
|
70s: K L Rao, then Minister for Irrigation and Power, prepares proposal for national water grid. His proposal, called the Ganga-Cauvery link, stretches across 2640 km, from Ganga to the South. 60s: Captain Dastur proposes construction of 4,200-km-long Garland canal across the Himalayas, 9,300-km-long Southern Garland canal and pipelines to connect the two near Delhi and Patna. 80s: Government prepares National Perspective Plan. Indira Gandhi directs that the Peninsular component be given priority. Story continues below this ad |
While the government spent 22 per cent of its revenue on irrigation in 1966, it became 6 per cent in the 8217;90s. Its 9th plan outlay is only Rs 40,000 crores for water and irrigation, 8216;8216;just enough to pay salaries of the water resources Ministry8217;8217;, as compared to Rs 20,000 crore in telecom and Rs 14,000 crore as fertiliser subsidy.
There are 400 major, medium and minor ongoing irrigation projects in the country which require an investment of 80,000 crore. Experts say that if you add another Rs 24,000 crores for ground-water recharge, the total comes to Rs 1.15 lakh crores, compared to Rs 5.60 lakh crores earmarked for inter-linking rivers. Where will this mammoth sum 8212; equal to India8217;s total foreign exchange reserves 8212; come from?
8216;8216;The 10th plan does not even mention the interlinking projects, it will finally come to the states either today or tomorrow or day after,8217;8217; says Ramaswamy Iyer, expert on water who has just done a paper for the task force. 8216;8216;As far as the private sector is concerned, why would anybody want to invest in mega protects with a long gestation period?8217;8217; he added.
SMALL IS WONDERFUL
The environmentalists8217; first objection to the project is the announcement by the prime minister and the president even before the environment impact assessment. 8216;8216;Does Justice Kirpal have the cost benefit analysis or some document that made him say that the project should be completed in 10 years? If so, why have these not been made public,8217;8217; asks Medha Patkar, currently on her Desh Bachao Yatra.
The six detailed project reports still do not given a proper idea of the damage the project will inflict, from waterlogging, silting and salinity to the destruction of forests and fishes. For rehabilitation, figures vary from 5 million given by the WWF to 4.5 lakhs by the government. 8216;8216;Waterlogging is a very sensitive issue linked to canals since the British days,8217;8217; points out Dinesh Kumar Mishra, an IIT trained environmentalist now based in Jamshedpur. According to one study only 28 per cent of the water released from the canal head reaches the fields, rest leads to waterlogging, argues Mishra.
8216;8216;Most of this water is lost in open canals either through evaporation given high temperatures or through percolation in porous Himalayan soil,8217;8217; says IIM Calcutta Professor Jayanta Bandopadhyaya, a top water expert. Instead of transporting water why don8217;t we simply grow more food and transport that and instead learn to manage water efficiently, concludes Bandopadhyaya.
8216;8216;Under the pressure of capital flow, ministries like environment, rural development and social justice are going to be sidelined or co-opted. It is very clear that the contractors8217; lobby is behind this project,8217;8217; says Patkar.
Most environmentalists argue that such a mega project is not required. 8216;8216;The focus should shift from the basin or sub-basin to small watershed and water planning should be local,8217;8217; says Iyer. 8216;8216;Unfortunately the government has never assessed the potential of rainwater harvesting, not even on a basin,8217;8217; says Himanshu Thakkar, a Delhi-based water expert.
| Angry Neighbours |
|
KATHMANDU: CHAIRMAN of the river-linking task force Suresh Prabhu may believe Nepal8217;s response to the project is 8216;8216;favourable8217;8217; see interview, but a spokesman of water resources ministry in Nepal says that they are yet to be informed about the project officially. 8216;8216;We have only heard rumours about this. We can make no comments without studying the project in detail,8217;8217; says ministry spokesman Bishnu Bahadur Thapa. DHAKA: Bangladesh, too, claims to have no 8216;8216;official8217;8217; information on the ambitious river-linking project being planned across the border. 8216;8216;There8217;s been no question of a consultation,8217;8217; says an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 8216;8216;Such a project can only have disastrous consequences for us .8217;8217; |
