By Ruma Dubey

With India staring straight into the face of a drought, the question which looms large is – how will we tackle the problem of water shortage? For us city dwellers, life is a charmed experience despite a 10% water cut compared to millions of others around the country who walk 6-8 kilometers per day to just fetch water.

Not surprisingly, many fund managers around the world are recommending buying into ‘water’stocks – essentially companies which sell bottled water or treat water as that might fetch more value than even gold today. Not an exaggeration; if we go in the same direction as now, very soon, we will run out of water.

It is not that we are in an irreversible corner. Two-thirds of the water India receives is wasted because of inadequate storage and management; so if we begin storing rain water well, maybe many of the water related issues could get resolved. The Govt is yet to take rainwater harvesting on a war footing but it would rather work on something as unfeasible as interlinking the rivers of India.

The idea of linking the rivers of India was first mooted by the NDA Govt and everyone lauded them for coming up with such a ‘great’ idea. Then UPA came into power and sat on it, like it sits on everything else. It appointed the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) to conduct a feasibility report on interlinking rivers of India (ILR) to overcome this water shortage problem. And many have been asking as to when will the Govt actually get down to implement ILR.

But a study of the report made by NCAER shows that this ILR could prove to be catastrophic for India. The ILR project, if implemented could add around 5% to the GDP over the next 13 years but this addition to GDP comes at a huge economic, social and ecological cost which is just not worth it.

ILR sounds easy – just change the direction of the river to merge into one big mass. But it only sounds easy; it is a gargantuan task, almost trying to become God!  We are talking of linking waters in the Himalayan and peninsular river.  Why this topic now? In the beginning of the year, the Supreme Court had directed the Centre to constitute a special committee to pursue the outdated plan of linking India's rivers. Prior to that, the Supreme Court had suggested that the project be completed by 2016. But the idea was rejected by the then Union Ministry of Environment & Forests while states like Kerela, Punjab and West Bengal rejected this project.  That’s not all –a wide spectrum of experts has rejected the idea.

Here is a quick look at why ILR project is just not viable.

The NCAER has only conducted a ‘Economic’ study; it has nothing on the social and ecological impact.  It did not even consider the cost benefits of implementing this project.

The cost of the project -  NCAER study observes that the cost of the overall ILR programme was estimated by the task force at Rs 5,60,000 crore at 2002-03 prices. Can one imagine the cost at today’s inflation?

People and livelihoods displaced by construction of dams are yet to be settled. Can one imagine how people all across India could get displaced and how they could be resettled? NCAER report is silent about this aspect.

Moving waters across India is extremely energy intensive. Do we have that much energy in an already power deficient country?

Diverting rivers will mean major changes in environmental landscapes. Nowhere does the report talk about this ecological damage.

Linking rivers would mean that states should be willing to share water. Cauvery is already a volcanic issue. AP and Kerala have already rejected the project because of proposed Polavaram and Pamba-Achankovil-Vaippar links. The Court’s order for ILR project was based on the assumption that there is consensus among the states for this project. Clearly, this itself has hit a roadblock.

This project to link 30 rivers, also covers the Brahmaputra and Manas and that requires international approvals too as planning of water resources of the region will mean care with respect to international dimensions.  Thus the challenge of taking along neighbouring countries, especially China, is huge and seems impossible.

ILR sounded ambitious but as we can see, it is unviable and spells disaster. More than the LFR, India needs to look at other less destructive but more efficient options like rainwater harvesting, improving irrigation efficiencies, putting a lid on pollution and looking at viable local water transfer options between states for agriculture.