Massive project to divert Ganges

Ambitious scheme to channel water from regions with a surplus to drought-prone areas could begin in days, but Bangladesh has raised concerns

India is set to start work on a massive, unprecedented river diversion programme, which will channel water away from the north and west of the country to drought-prone areas in the east and south. The plan could be disastrous for the local ecology, environmental activists warn.

The project involves rerouting water from major rivers including the Ganges and Brahmaputra and creating canals to link the Ken and Batwa rivers in central India and Damanganga-Pinjal in the west.

The minister of water resources, Uma Bharti, said this week that work could start in a few days. A spokesperson from her department told the Guardian that the government is still waiting for clearance from the environment ministry.

The project will cost an estimated 20tn rupees (£207bn) and take 20 to 30 years to complete.

The government of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, is presenting the project as the solution to India’s endemic water problems. For years, parts of India have suffered from devastating spells of drought.As average temperatures in India rise, and the growing population puts increasing demands on water resources, millions of people are without a reliable water supply.

This year, 330 million Indians have been affected by drought. State governments used emergency measures to deliver water by train in the western state of Maharashtra; in other areas, schools and hospitals were forced to close, and hundreds of families were forced to migrate from villages to nearby cities where water is more easily accessible.

According to the National Water Development Agency, which will oversee the rivers project, “the water availability even for drinking purposes becomes critical, particularly in the summer months … On the other hand excess rainfall occurring in some parts of the country create[s] havoc due to floods.”

The scheme is a pet project of Modi, who has made several promises to end India’s long-term water problems. In the first few months of his premiership, Modi’s cabinet revived the idea of linking 30 rivers across India. The water resources ministry spokesperson said: “The idea is old, but the Modi government has done all the work on it.”

Plans to link rivers were drawn up in the 1980s by Indira Gandhi’s government, and were gathering dust as central governments repeatedly failed to win the approval of states. Now, with a supreme court mandate, and government backing, save the rubber stamp of the environment ministry, the project could get under way in a matter of days.

Scientists say the government needs to do a full audit of its existing water resources and analyse the environmental impact of linking rivers before pressing on with its plans.

Dr Latha Anantha, from the River Research Centre, said the project could be catastrophic for India’s river-dependent ecology. “The government is trying to redraw the entire geography of the country,” she said. “What will happen to communities, the wildlife, the farmers who live downstream of the rivers? They need to look at a river not just as a source of water, but as an entire ecosystem.

“They will have to dig canals everywhere and defy the ecology of the country. It is a waste of money and they have overestimated how much water there is in the rivers they want to divert.”

Governments have toyed with the idea of redrawing river routes since the 1800s, when the country was still under colonial rule. The resulting disputes still play out today. The Mullaperiyar dam, which diverted water from the southern state of Kerala to neighbouring Tamil Nadu, was built in the late 1800s, and was considered at the time to be one of the most extraordinary feats of engineering ever achieved. Now, the two state governments continue to dispute control of the dam.

Source: The Guardian

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3 Comments

1. Half cooked and half baked Cakes with toppings of Political Aspirations and Desires can not make projects happen.Tax payers money need be spent on skillfully and scientifically planned projects with a.Setting up of Target Objects , b. Generation of technically feasible options , c. Comparison of financials of technically feasible options and quantitative assessment of fulfilment of objective targets at what estimated CAPEX and OPEX.It is very right to say that all technical options have to be studied in the context of ecological balance..
   And the seats of Power may also be reminded that all rivers are aggregated SURFACE RUN OFFs of good quality water --be it rainfall or melting of snow or glaciers..and we have not tried to utilise/ store surface run off which rivers handover to seas/oceans..Rather than creating ponds, lakes, allowing surface run off water time to percolate into acquifers and rather than interlinking tributaries and rivers, we have done our very best to exhaust our ground water and to deplete flows from tributories and river systems and also in failing to protect them from dumping of sewerages and waste water/ effluents -untreated and partially treated....Government departments dominated by Civil Engineers always find it easy to propose Civil structures, be it damns, concrete tanks, channels and canals ..without proper assessments of their real impacts on ecology and with nothing much on Life Cycle costing and Maintenance costs...There are so many options which can be excercised --- and vast technological experiences are very much there with Germans, British, Australians, US and Japanese Engineering Firms and rather than a knee jerk reactions, we need to make a wholistic master plan -- starting with Ganges and sure, it will have implications and compulsions to also objectively plan the same for All other Rivers of India...
   
   

2. It is a good project that has been conceived many decades ago. This concept could easily have been implemented either in fifties or early sixties but these days when it is so difficult to construct even dams with moderate size reservoirs, how can you think of taking up a gigantic project involving millions of people though such a project is necessary for solving water woes in the future. The government should take forward the project with out hurry taking all aspects such as dependable long term hydrology of the rivers, long term rain fall data,rainfall data, water balance in basins and most important taking into consideration the requirement of water in the long term in case of donor basin. beside, environmental impact of such a massive project in case of donor rivers, area en route and in case of recipient basins should be analysed in details, treatment measures required to minimise such impacts identified and their efficacy established. In addition to above the impact of this project on inhabitants be analysed and measures to rehabilitate them in proper manner to their satisfaction have to be formulated and implemented in the project. Above all as long as parochial thinking is in our minds,This project can never be implemented successfully. Feeling that this is being done for my fellow countrymen and is necessary for my country has to be inculcated in people. Ken- Betwa Link, although a small component of this gigantic project and may not face problems on large scale including the political one, its benefits should be widely publicised by the government so that people are enlightened and they are mentally prepatrd foe many more such projects in future. This campaign should be more intense in areas where such project are envisaged in near future to prepare mentally the local habitation. This project when completed can serve as a laboratory to analyse both short term and long term impact of the project on the environment and serves as EIA guide for future projects.

3. It is good that Govt of India has given attention to solve water scarcity in India. But what are the reasons and what should be a sustainable solution is in dispute. What is needed is to stop wasteful use of water and water resources. Shortage in Water availability and high damages due to floods are caused by the same reasons, i.e. construction and mining activities in the catchment areas and flood plains. The Govt of India must give proper attention on these problems and try to solve them. Shutting eyes from the bare facts , can not solve a problem in a correct and sustainable manner.