[Assam] Fwd: " [WaterWatch] ‘Linking rivers’, " a dated notion

Chan Mahanta cmahanta at charter.net
Wed Jul 18 12:26:37 PDT 2007 

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>Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:01:21 -0000
>Subject: " [WaterWatch] ‘Linking rivers’, "
>  a dated notion
>Reply-To: WaterWatch at yahoogroups.com
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>Water scarcity is a real threat
>
>It's time to progress beyond jingoism and gravitate towards
>practicality
>
>GURUMURTI NATARAJAN
>
>The next war ripping across continents may well be triggered by
>water scarcity. Already a third of the world is suffering from water
>shortages. Ironically, rainfall has been adequate. The water is
>there. But what has gone awry is its management. Water scarcity in
>Asia and Australia alone affects a fourth of the world's population
>and is triggered by over-usage whereas in Africa, it is lack of
>adequate infrastructure that wreaks havoc.
>
>Water scarcity around the world has come about primarily due to
>quintessentially wasteful practices that have seeped into present-
>day agriculture which sadly mops up 80% of fresh water. Over the
>past 100 years, water usage has gone up by six times globally, and
>is threatening to double again by the year 2050, driven mainly by
>demands of irrigation and increased agricultural activities. Current
>methods of irrigation will have to be urgently revisited and more
>efficient means reinvented. Problems of water scarcity can best be
>addressed by better efficiency in its utilisation, recycling,
>pricing of water (and the electricity used for lifting and conveying
>the water) where not already in vogue, transportation without
>losses, leaks and pilferage, and through education of the perils of
>the dangers to all humanity that is presently straining at the
>tethers due to the current reckless abandon with which it has been
>mismanaged.
>
>Interestingly rich nations like Australia are not immune to water
>scarcity. An urban Australian on the average trashes 300 litres of
>water daily and the European notches 200 litres, while the sub-
>Saharan African makes do with less than 20 litres a day. On the
>other side, one never ceases to marvel at Israel, which has truly
>mastered the art and science of water and its sustainable
>utilisation, conservation and augmentation.
>
>For a country that receives a best average rainfall of about 700 mm
>annually (in the Zefat region in the northern mountainous terrain),
>its agricultural productivity puts to shame any other agricultural
>economy. Here, efficiency of farm production is calibrated against
>water used for irrigation and a deterrent placed on its wastage.
>
>With agriculture being the main culprit for abysmal water scarcity,
>one should look up to advances in genetic engineering that has
>notched a few successes in ameliorating this acute paucity of water
>by suitably altering the plant's architecture, reduced need for
>water through modifications of internal anatomy and adjustments of
>crop physiology, besides enabling plants to survive and succeed in
>saline, salty and harsh environments.
>
>Improving the efficiency of agricultural production and water use
>are fundamental to any blueprint for a sustainable and equitable
>growth. The Murray-Darling that runs through Australian agricultural
>heartland has been steadily receding, triggered in part by an
>unprecedented string of droughts and exasperated by incessant
>siphoning for irrigation purposes. The Mekong, running through Laos,
>Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam is another startling example of how a
>once life-sustaining force could threaten the very communities that
>it once helped found and nurture.
>
>Nearer at home the muffled rumblings that one hears from time to
>time in some high-fluted national seminar where the wind bags wax
>eloquently of the virtues of linking rivers to ward off a
>cataclysmic disaster in the making is all hog wash.
>
>The idea of `linking rivers' is a dated notion, tracing its origins
>to Sir Arthur Cotton in the 19th century. Akin to Captain
>Dastur's `Garland Canal', Dr K L Rao's proposal of a Ganga-Cauvery
>Link was another idea that was just as handsomely popular as it was
>ridiculously impractical!
>
>Rao's plan envisaged the link to take off near Patna, pass through
>the basins of the Sone, Narmada, Tapi, Godavari, Krishna and Pennar
>rivers before joining the Cauvery upstream of the Grand Anicut.
>Traversing 2,640 km, 60,000 cusecs of water were to be drawn from
>the flood flows of the Ganges for 150 days in the year. A
>substantial part of that water was to be lifted over 450 metres.
>
>The scheme was abandoned for its huge financial costs and large
>energy requirements, besides the colossal misery that it would have
>wreaked on hapless hamlets and populations of people in the millions
>along the trail of this grandiose link. Techno-economic viability
>apart, diversion of waters from the Ganges would have unfailingly
>embroiled India in an international dispute with neighbouring
>Bangladesh for such a flagrant violation.
>
>Based on environmental impact assessments, multi-criteria
>cost/benefit analyses, qualitative assessments of non-quantifiable
>considerations and rigorous investment appraisals, the National
>Commission on Integrated Water Resources Development Plan summarily
>rejected all but one of the river-linking proposals with the
>conclusion that the "the assessed needs of the basins could be met
>from full development and efficient utilisation of intra-basin
>resources except in the case of Cauvery and Vaigai basins".
>
>A PIL filed in the Supreme Court in 2002 elicited a direction to
>accelerate the `linking of rivers' by the learned judiciary.
>Debatable as the propriety of judicial directions on such a subject
>might be, the process brought to the fore a staggering revelation of
>cost of the order of Rs. 5,60,000 crore, according to one estimate!
>As a country, we simply don't enjoy that kind of a luxury.
>
>Instead of frittering away our limited resources on such grandiose
>schemes, we'd do well to channel our energies on micro-projects that
>collectively aim at conservation of water and promote its
>sustainable use through judicious management. The success of rain-
>water harvesting schemes in some of our states and the resultant
>improvement of ground water is a case in point.
>
>Likewise, the de-silting and strengthening of temple tanks and
>community water bodies ought to be practiced beyond symbolic
>gestures of photo-ops for the politically inclined. Polluting users
>of water sources need to be provided alternate, technology-driven
>solutions and continued intransigence must attract severe penalties
>under the law.
>
>Populist measures of providing free use of electricity and water for
>agriculture must be weaned down and agricultural productivity must
>reflect efficient use of energy and water inputs.
>
>Capacity building through mass education and information-sharing
>accompanied by transparent, impartial and judicious management
>systems deserve attention.
>
>The author is a specialist in agri-businesses
>
>The Financial Express
>15 July, 2007
>
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