Waiting for the watershed

MARCH 13: In spite of all the hype, the irrigation and energy levels in Indian agriculture are low and inefficient. This is true of the su...

MARCH 13: In spite of all the hype, the irrigation and energy levels in Indian agriculture are low and inefficient. This is true of the subcontinent as a whole. If an effort is made to improve matters, some group is always there to stop it. In many coastal areas, excessive water withdrawal has meant the disappearance of mangroves and salinity ingress. In other areas confined aquifiers have been flogged without replenishment and “grey” blocks of scarcity have developed.

In yet other areas, including the lower Ganges basin, the Brahmaputra and in large parts of the whole country of Bangladesh, surpluses have led to the problem of drainage. Modern technology and management can solve a large part of our problems. But we insist on standing in the way. We are tottering close to the global standards of “scarcity” of water in terms of per-person availabilities. Of the large countries, only Ch-ina is less secure than we are. But our population is growing faster, soon we will be worse off than them. In our minds the Ganga flows for ever. But even in mythology the sacred rivers punish those who defile them.

The energy problem is equally bad. The merchants who import oil and gas are not going to rub in the bad news. The day their bills are not paid they will turn nasty. Yes, we have a lot of coal. But it is of very bad quality, also those of you who breathe it out of the Indraprastha power station in Delhi know better. I am doubly blessed, because I also get it form the Sabarmati power station in Ahmedabad. The public and private sectors don’t discriminate in pum-ping in illegal particulate matter in my lungs. The re-ason why I cooperated with the Americans in energy is that they are very good at burning almost anything and producing electricity from it. And some day, I hoped, they would take the coal gasification technologies our boys have developed and the fluidised bed boilers and we would work together.

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So we even signed a science and technology agreement with them. But all of these are palliatives. My old colleague J.N. Magoo in the Planning Commission tells us that with business as usual we could end upburning two billion tonnes of coal annually. This is not possible so we have to start worrying from now. Wind energy, solar power will only go so far. And those who want us to be frugal are right, but our per-person consumption levels will still be very low. There is no easy escape, my friend. So let us be real.

Let us share a vision. Let us conserve energy and water. Nature has its own rhythm. It assimilates both very well. The interventions required, it is now accepted, are minimal. Gran-diose dreams are giving way to the possible. Projects are changing. The late Kanwar Sain had designed ma-ny projects on the Mekong. One has changed substantially now, by simply recognising the interests of the residents of a lake called the Tonle Sap. The return fl-ow from the Mek-ong to the lake, in the monsoon, has to be kept at a minimum.

So people do not suffer. This changes the contours of the projects on the river. So be it. But for the sake of your patron deity, don’t stop the development of water projects, in blind fanaticism, depriving millions of people of their life-giving elixir. Some rules would help. The needs of those who suffer losses with lack of access will get the highest priority. Historically determined rights will not be violated. But once these are recognis-ed, don’t let precious water just flow away in waste.

The development of projects on water and energy have to be built on the principles of partnerships and win-win situations. Those who gain have to pay the price also. Our people find it difficult to accept this. When I was power minister we discovered that the east had a lot of surplus power and plants were backing down, because of lack of demand. The south, growing fast, was chronically short of power. The national grid would take time, but some HVDC lines, which ship large volumes of power efficiently, were ready.

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Back-to-back arrangements were designed to ship power. But it turned out that the east wanted to charge a very high and unreasonable price, by spreading its overhead costs on low volumes. This was sorted out and an “availability tariff” which works on the principle of efficiency-pricing was implemented. In January 1997, 200 billion units of power were shipped.

Then in February that year there was a major blackout in the south on an election day. But our boys had worked the system and more than 500 MWs of power really went from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. It is now commonplace.

We have the technology and the experience to forge cooperation and partnerships on water and energy in the subcontinent. We need the vision and the will. To begin with, let us declare that we will pay the marginal costs of water and energy, including the costs of development. The availability tariff is a good principle and both the supplier and user will benefit. Let us also share the benefits of the National Grid and the Power Tradition Corporation. In times of need power can flow the other way also. A small country like Bhutan can be the example of prosperity built on trade. The subcontinent has to face its real problems of food, water and energy.