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... what only one post for the day.. guys buck up .. otherwise this thread will die out... we hardly have one month time, and so much to prepare .. hmm.. anyways this info from my side..
Inter-linking of rivers
WATER MANAGEMENT is perhaps the most serious problem facing the nation. The critical problem is the uneven distribution of the run-offs and precipitation rates during the monsoon season. While the Brahmaputra and Mahanadi river basins regularly face floods due to heavy run-offs, most other regions (with the exception of the Western Ghat regions) face recurrent drought situations. Drought occurs in over 80 per cent of the country's land area even if there is a shortfall in rains of only 25 per cent from the national annual average of 554 mm (for the monsoon period, June-July). We have to evolve national and panchayat-level policies and organisational arrangements to develop an integrated `water mission' with a sense of urgency before the problem gets out of hand.
Objections answered
The National Water Development Agency (NWDA) has proposed answers to two major objections raised to the late K.L. Rao's proposals for a Ganga-Cauvery link: (1) the inadequate water available in the Ganga and (2) the problem of negotiating the Vindhya mountains requiring about 90,000 MW electric power or a complex network of tunnels. Both the objections have been successfully answered by NWDA: water for the Ganga will be found from the Brahmaputra from Manas in Arunachal Pradesh; the Vindhya mountains will be negotiated not by lifting up water but by circum-navigating the mountains: north of the mountains, the flow of the link between the Ganga and the Mahanadi will be from west/northeast to southeast (by gravity) and south of the mountains, the flow of the link between the Mahanadi and the Godavari will be from east to southwest/south (by gravity).
The vast spatial and temporal variations in the availability of water exemplify the fact that the country does not face a water crisis but has only to contend with and find solutions for an equitable distribution. Thus, even though the per capita availability of water in India is among the best in the world, the utilisable quantity is much less because of the dependence on monsoon and because of the fact that 85 to 90 per cent of the river run-offs occur during the four monsoon months of a year. Even during the monsoon months, the run-offs are uneven in the river basins; for example, Brahmaputra accounts for about twice the amount of the run-offs in the Ganga during the monsoon months. This situation leads to a key design criterion for water management: the storing and transferring of surplus waters from the Brahmaputra river basin to the Ganga and peninsular river basins.
The NWDA was set up in 1982 for the single purpose of transferring water from surplus river basins to deficit areas. The total estimated km of river links will exceed 5,000 and together with a matrix of canal systems and the long coastline of 7517 km, the potential exists to create 40,000 km of inland waterways. In addition to this, many minor irrigation works and storage facilities will be constructed in all the States as part of the plan since the links cover virtually all States.
Policy decision
C.P. Thakur, the then Minister for Water Resources, made a statement in the Rajya Sabha in May 2000: "The Government will soon take up a project to link six major rivers as part of the long term plan to revive the Ganga-Cauvery link to tackle the water problem in the country. The Ganga Cauvery project as a whole would cost a whopping Rs. 3.30 lakh crores and hence the Government proposed to take it up in stages and initially, linking of six rivers would be taken up for which details were being worked out."
This will be a phenomenal project to unite all the people of the country and give a developmental impetus of unprecedented magnitude. It would
1. Create the potential to increase agricultural production by an additional 100 per cent in the next 5 years.
2. Avoid the losses of the type which occurred during 2002 to the extent of Rs. 25,000 crores by the loss of crops due to drought conditions and flooding in many parts of the country.
3. Save Rs. 3,000 crores a year in foreign exhange by avoiding importing oil because of the cost-effective alternative navigation provided along the long coastline and the National Water Way which will become a reality by implementing the project.
4. Unify the country by involving every panchayat as a share-holder and implementing agency in a Himanad Corporation to be set up to implement the Rs. 3.3 lakh crore project over the next 10 years in a time-bound programme.
5. Provide for enhancing the security of the country by an additional water-line of defence (along the western and northwestern borders with the River Sarasvati, an extension of the Rajasthan Canal beyond Jaisalmer up to Gujarat and along the northern and north-eastern borders with the linking of the Brahmapurtra and the Ganga).
6. Provide employment to 10 lakh people for the next 10 years.
7. Provide a National Water Way to complement the Railway and road networks.
8. Mitigate the flooding problems which recur in the northeast and the north.
9. Solve the water scarcity situation in many parts of the country, particularly in the northwest, western and southern Bharat by providing alternative, perennial water resources.
The nation should have to plan for water management assuming three consecutive failures of monsoons; failure being defined as a 25 per cent shortfall in annual average precipitation rate of 554 mm. This is complementary to the plans in place to provide for three consecutive shortfalls in crop production by adequate foodgrain storage and distribution facilities in the country. What we have done for foodgrains, thanks to the Green Revolution by avoiding famine-like situations, has to be repeated for water storage and distribution facilities in the country. We need to start a Water Management Revolution as a people's movement.
Funding the project
The Government of India has already announced the project in principle in Parliament at an estimated cost of Rs. 3.3 lakh crores. This is equal to one year's budget. Spread over 10 years, the project outlay per annum will average out to Rs. 33,000 crores. This annual outlay can be funded by financial institutions such as ICICI, IDBI and banks, apart from people's participation through subscriptions to Brahmaputra and Sarasvati bonds/debentures. This arrangement will ensure that the project outlays will not impact the government budget outlays. There may also be no need for sourcing for funds from external financial institutions such as the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank or the Exim Bank since the project is basically labour-intensive and does not need substantial technology imports.
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