Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Linking rivers

Sir, — This refers to the news report on the workshop, ``Frontline issues in water and land management and policy," held at Anand in Gujarat wherein experts expressed doubts about the Prime Minister's river linking project. Both the cost estimated at Rs. 5.7 million crores and time for completion at 40 years are not only unsuitable but any number of changes can take place making the project not feasible after spending a lot of money.

What is needed today is better management of existing resources. Due to inter-State disputes over rivers flowing through more than one State, huge quantities of water are allowed to flow into the sea. Simple steps required are control of deforestation, aggressive afforestation — not simply by allocating funds but effectively ensuring desilting of the river, tanks, wells and storage areas behind the dams, creation of more storage facilities etc.

Through these measures, there can be an increase of about 30 to 40 per cent in the availability of water.

G. M. Rama Rao,

Visakhapatnam, A.P.

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• Disaster in space
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• The Mahatma that failed?
• Disinvestment and Parliament
• Tending to the neighbourhood
• Lessons for India from the tragedy
• Conflict of interest
• Take positive steps
• Linking rivers
• Neglected lot
• Reject the alibi

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