Inter-linking of rivers a dream or reality

(Central Chronicle ) Friday, September 25, 2009

Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's remark on the Inter-Linking of Rivers Project on September 10 saying that it would be dangerous to "play with nature on a massive scale" is borne out of the current-day ambience created by "environmentalists" against all river valley projects, "chemical fertilizers and what not and a total ignorance of the issues involved, including the fact it is actually a project envisaged and finalized by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in early 1980.
For someone who aspires to be the Prime Minister of India one day, it would be necessary to learn one or two things about the very philosophy of linking of rivers and also that this process began in India as early as in 1886 itself. There are other schemes too which are older than 100 years and they have all benefited people, not proved to be disasters. Anyone familiar with the story of the success of agriculture in Punjab must also be aware that this success owes to a great extent -along with the advent of the Green Revolution triggered by Dr. Norman Borlaug - to the inter-lining of the three main rivers of Punjab, the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej. The Ravi and the Beas were interinked much before Independence.
The Secretary of State for India during the British era and the Maharaja of Travancore had signed an agreement in 1886 making indentures in respect of lease of certain territory in the Travancore State in connection with the Periyar Irrigation Project which is operative for 999 years. That had helped the construction of the Mulla-Periyar Project enabling diversion of some volume of water from the Periyar River in today's Kerala to the Vaigai River in today's Tamil Nadu. The people of the parched districts of Ramanathapuram and Madurai in the erstwhile Madras province, many of whom were accused of being cattle lifters, could till their land and had become rich landlords in no time. The people of Tamil Nadu had penned a ballad in praise of the builder Pennycot for this project.
If Mr. Gandhi looks closely at the map of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh today, he will find that the river Tungabhadrs from Karnataka enters Andhra Pradesh near Kurnool, and joins the Krishna near there. However, before that takes place, a canal takes off from the Tungabhadrs from near Alampur and flows southwards to join the river Pennar near Kadapa, the political headquarters of the late YSR of Andhra Pradesh Built by the great Sir Arthur Cotton probably in the 1930s. This canal provides water for the perennially drought-stricken Rayalseema region of Andhra Pradesh. Arthur Cotton had also built the Dowlaisaram barrage across the Godavari around that time and the people of Andhra Pradesh have honoured him by building his statute near that barrage.
Even before the country was partitioned, the British had felt that some waters of the river Ravi could profitably be diverted to the river Beas by a linking canal in order to boost irrigation in the Punjab. So had come the Madhopur-Beas Link. After Independence, this link was renamed the Ravi Beas Link and an irrigation and hydel project across the Ravi built and named the Ranjit Sagar project. Meanwhile, at a place called Pandoh in the Himachal Pradesh, a dam was built across the Beas river in order to divert some waters of the river southwards to a place called Dehar to join the Sutlej. This diverted water falls into the Bhakra reservoir. At the same time, another dam was built across the Beas at a place in Punjab called Pong. This Pond Dam drives water to the Harike Barrage from where this volume of water flows into what was called the Rajasthan Canal earlier, now known as the Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana. This project has changed the face of north Rajasthan from a desert territory to one brimming with greenery.
Before Independence, the area in Bihar known as the Chhotanagpur region, used to suffer from both drought and floods caused by rivers such as the Damodar the Barakar, the Tilayya etc. The Damodar Valley Corporation envisaged by Jawaharlal Nehru constructed short-distance links besides dams and canals which have brought prosperity to Bihar (now Jharkhand) and West Bengal.
Long-distance water transfers from the Bhakra and Tehri Dams provide drinking water to Delhi, from the Cauvery to Bengaluru and from the Krishna, 460 kilometres to the north at Sri Sailam to Chennai.
More examples can be cited but one has to mention here that it was Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's time that a final shape was given to the National Perspective for Water Resources Development, which became the Inter-Linking of Rivers project, in May 1980.
When on October 31, 2002, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had proposed in the Lok Sabha to set up a task force for re-activating the river-linking project in the background of the severe drought that year, one of the first members to support it was the then Leader of the Opposition, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi.
Arabinda Ghose, NPA