The Hindu : Experts raise doubts about river-linking project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 31, 2003

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Experts raise doubts about river-linking project

By Manas Dasgupta

ANAND (GUJARAT) Jan. 30. Water management experts have expressed doubts about the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's ambitious project of inter-linking of rivers to solve the problem of regional imbalance of water in the country.

At the end of a three-day workshop on "Frontline Issues in Water and Land Management and Policy" held under the auspices of the Colombo-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI) here on Wednesday, Tushaar Shah, head of the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Programme, was doubtful whether the project would be a practical solution to the complex problems. He said his team was yet to go into the cost-benefit ratio and pros and cons but, on the face of it, the project did not appear practical. Besides entailing huge costs — over Rs. 5,70,00,000 crores — it would need a long gestation period of about 40 years by which the priority and requirement of the country could change.

Each year for the next 25 years at least one per cent of the gross domestic product would have to be spent for the completion of the project.

He said the concept of transferring water from one basin to another was not new but nowhere had it proved to be successful because of the prohibitive cost and the long gestation period.

The IWMI director-general, Frank Rijsberman, felt that the project was "announced in despair" and was a "grandiose solution" to the problem which was "more real and complex" than the planners had given thought to. "Small solutions closer to the users" should be given the first try before rushing for such big projects, he said.

The IWMI, funded by various national governments including India, is currently operating in 29 countries producing "public goods research" to help the partner countries reduce poverty through better farming practices.Simila arly, the Sardar Sarovar dam project on the Narmada river in Gujarat too had proved to be a drain on the State exchequer, Dr. Shah said.

The State coffers were empty but the project would still need about Rs. 16,500 crores more to be completed on the "original design". There was no meaning in raising the question of the economic viability of the Narmada dam project as the bulk of the amount had already been spent and there was no going back now. But he urged the State planners not to insist on the "original design" and spend fortunes for creating a network of village distribution system. "Narmada can still change the face of Gujarat," he said.

Pointing out that India was ranked 47th from the bottom among the 147 "water-poorest" countries in the world in a "water poverty index" at the University of Keel and Institute of Hydrology at Wallingford, Dr. Shah said the country needed to re-orient its water management policy, linking it with the poverty alleviation programmes.

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