Re: [India_Vision_2020] Centre to shelve river-linking project ~ India Vision 2020

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Re: [India_Vision_2020] Centre to shelve river-linking project

India Vision 202010:24 AM No comments

Dear Manjit

You have initiated a very good and most timely discussion on linking rivers. I personally believe that shelving the 'river linking project' is a wise decision.

Linking all the rivers may be possible, but managing the floods is going to be not in the hands of the human beings. It is evident from the recent floods in River Krishna. Experts say that only two thirds of waters of any river shall be managed, stored and used for various purposes, leaving atleast one thirds into the sea. As far as Krishna Waters are concerned, 95% of its water is checked through numerous dams like Almatti, Narayanpur, Thungabhadra, Jurala, Sunkesula, Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar and Prakasam barrage on its course of 1400 kms from its origin in Maharashtra via Karnataka and in AP till its joining the Bay of Bengal. During the present floods in River Krishna in the first week of this month, the human engineers chould not coordinate in maintaining inflow and outflow into the repective reservoirs, could not assess the rain fall in the respective catchment areas. The result is loss of life, crop, livestock, property in 5 mandals each in Karnataka and AP worth several crores of rupees. This has become a lesson to be learnt by the people. If one river can not be maintained, how do you expect the Govt machinery manage the linked rivers? If, for example, the two major rivers in AP namely Krishna & Godavari and linked, all the low lying areas except the deccan platue will sink when two rivers receive unusual rains at a time.

This apart, environment experts say that any river shall flow to cleanse its basins, fill the earth layers with fresh water. This will arrest the sea salts creeping into hinterlands and mainland. It is possible only when a minimum of one thirds of river water flow into sea, every season.

History says that all the "Cities are river-made". I remember to have read Hisotorian Romilla Thapar's "Footfalls of History" long ago. By this account, we understand and believe that all the major cities in the world, all the civilizations and cultures across the world took birth by rivers. Rivers like Ganga, Nile, Tigris, Volga, Thames are a very few to mention. People from the nomadic age established themselves by a source of water - be it river or rivulet, stream or streamlet, lake or pond, river mouth or delta. When the rivers can not be managed, there will be a natural loss to the human beings and the entire life that live by the rivers, even now.

Nature is nature. People being part of the nature, shall only live in nature and shall not meddle with its natural process and its natural shape. We do not want to see an uneven ground. Immediately we wanted to level it plain. With this the natural rain water drains are closed resulting in rain water inundating the residential areas in Cities.

Even the technologically and scientifically most advanced countries are not able to face and protect from the nature's fury. We, certainly, can not, atleast for now.

Regards,

On 10/6/09, manjit nath <manjitzing@yahoo.co.in> wrote:

HI all,

I want to share the news, I found in one local news paper of Assam. The river linking project was one of the most dicussed projects in Vision 2020 and also by Sir Abdul kalam. But this proposal initiated a lot of protests in river-rich states like Assam with mighty Brahmaputra flowing through its heart, where they feared that this will lead to imbalance in the eco-system in case of waters. The recent decision by Govt of India proves the fear of Assamese people to be true, though, it clearly demands some more scientific explanation.

Experts, please share your views.

Regards,

Manjit Nath

The article:

Link: http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=oct0609/at010

Centre to shelve river-linking project
Spl CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, Oct 5 — The UPA Government has decided to formally give a neat burial to the ambitious river-linking project, with Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest, Jairam Ramesh declaring that the project would be 'human, ecological and economic disaster for the country'. The pronouncement comes on a day, when the Minister announced the decision to adopt river dolphins as national aquatic animal. The suggestion to adopt the River Dolphin, also better known as Gangetic Dolphins came from Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar.

"The suggestion to adopt it as national aquatic animal came from Bihar Chief Minister and we accepted it," Ramesh said, briefing newsmen about the outcome of the meeting of Ganga River Basin Authority that was chaired by the Prime Minister.

The Environment and Forest Minister said that one of the criteria for measuring the revival of River Ganga would be return of river dolphins. Some 2000 of them are left in the country, he added.

They were found in large numbers before a few years. But now their number has come down considerably due to various human activities like fishing, poaching, construction of Farakka barrage in Ganges, sand mining in Kulsi River and massive deforestation.

The river dolphins are included in the schedule 1 of Indian Wildlife Act 1972.

Ganga River currently has about 600 of dolphins, while in Brahmaputra River, its population has gone down to 240-300.

Meanwhile, Environment and Forest Minister, replying to questions about the fate of the river linking project, indicated that it is going to be shelved. The Project has national and international ramifications. Bangladesh has already gone to UN, he added.

This is not physically possible to link rivers, he said, adding that smaller inter-basin transfers, however, could go on.

One of the erstwhile NDA Government's flagship projects, river-linking project did not find much favour with the current regime. "Interlinking of rivers was a revolutionary step initiated by the NDA government BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy had said.

BJP-led NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee had mooted the idea of interlinking of rivers to deal with the problem of drought and floods afflicting different parts of the country at the same time. The programme aims at equitable distribution of water throughout the country to solve issues of irrigation and drinking water as well, Rudy said."

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