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Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:01:21 -0000
Subject: " [WaterWatch] Linking rivers, "
a dated notion
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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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