This is an article written and sent to one of my friend. This article contains my personnel comments on the present plan of National Water Development Authority for Interlinking Indian Rivers. I think, the government will look in to it before it proceeds for the same.

1. From,
(WrittenBy),
Dr. Shivu.P. No. 757, Vinayamarga, 11th
cross, Siddarthanagar, Mysore 11. PIN: 570011.
Mobile number:9448477380, Land phone:0821 2561277, 0821 4000778
Mail: shivup.183@gmail.com Visit:www.slideshare.net/drshivu
To,
saineshgangadharan@rediffmail.com
This is in relation to the mail you had sent to me related to the subject Interlinking Indian
rivers.
Sainesh, I had gone through this project long back. This project was also explained to me
in brief by the concerned member for irrigation Sri Shekaran Sir, when I visited the then
Planning commission of India to explain my project at the office as it was suggested by Sri
M V Rajashekaran sir the Central minister for planning for states in September 2005.
According to me this inter basin transfer of river water has lot of limitation.
Let us look in to the some of the grossly visible limitations.
When we look in to the classification of the inter basin transfer of river in this project, it
says (a) Northern Himalayan component. (b)Southern Peninsular component and (c)
Intrastate River’s linking component.
This means southern peninsular region is again becomes rain dependent even after the
completion of the project if the rain is less, Scarcity of water will arise again as there will
be more irrigation related agriculture by the people hoping that this project will provide
water according to the need and the water related disputes will have new dimensions in
the future.
In this NWDA project, there is no water flowing from the perennial northern rivers to the
central, eastern, southern India where there is more dry land available for agriculture and
these areas will not be able to enhance their agriculture productivity which is the need of
the nation with this rapidly growing population.

2. All the components of the entire project are region specific and separate. There is no
continuity between one project to the other even within the same region, that means the
Northern Himalayan component has 14 inter-link projects and all these 14 projects are
separate projects within this Himalayan region only, In the same way 16 inter-link projects
for Peninsular component and 37 intrastate river linking projects , that means if there is
more rain in the river basin of one component this is not going to provide water even to
the adjacent component and thus the water reaches the sea from that component even if
the drought prevails in the neighbouring areas.
This project will not eradicate the drought from all the parts of India as most of the canals
are at lower levels. This project is not focusing the entire nation as one unit and majority
of the areas of India are going to suffer from scarcity of water like East and southern
districts of Rajasthan (Examples: Ajmer, Alwar, Banswara, Baran, Bharatpur, Bhilwara,
Bundi, Chittorgarh, Churu, Dausa, Dholpur, Dungarpur, Jaipur, Jalor,Jhalawar, Jhunjhunu,
Jodhpur, Karauli, Kota, Nagaur, Pali, Pratapgarh, Rajsamand, Sawai Madhopur, Sikar,
Sirohi, Tonk, Udaipur districts), all the north eastern districts of Gujarath, all the districts
of Uttar Pradesh which are situated south the course of Yamuna except for the Betwa Ken
river regions, all the districts of Bihar which are situated south the course of Ganga except
for the lower Sone river regions, all the districts of Madyapradesh except for the Chambal
Parbathi river area, all the districts of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, all the western districts
of Orissa except for the coastal districts, all the districts of Maharashtra except for north
Mumbai, all the districts of north Karnataka which are present north to the course of river
Krishna and some of the southern districts of Karnataka, western districts of Telangana, all
the western districts of Tamilnadu which are situated between River Pennar and Vaipur
except for the districts where river Cauvery flows, all the districts of Kerala.
This project is said to be having the design to ease water shortages in western and
southern India while mitigating the impacts of recurrent floods in the eastern parts of the
Ganga basin. But when we look in to the courses of various canals this project is not going
solve the problem of drought in the areas which are already mentioned in the previous
paragraph, and also it is difficult to control the flood when flood has already reached its
peak at the lower levels of land where these canals are proposed. To effectively control

3. the food we need to divert the water at the higher land level at multiple points where the
volume of water is relatively low and easy to manage in long run and at recurrences.
Creating network of reservoirs (more than 3000 storage structures) in the lands where the
population density is high and where these canals planned in this project may cause lot
problems to the public and lot of money will be involved to rehabilitate the sufferers. We
need to remember that the population density is more than 455 per square kilometres in
all the proposed canal reservoir areas except for Yamuna Rajasthan and Rajasthan
Sabarmati Interlinking. So it is very much essential to thinktwice before we plan to create
reservoirs and large dams.
When The interlinking project aims at transferring of water from ‘surplus’ region to
‘deficit’ region, we should not wait to create the linkcanal till the water becomes surplus,
by this time most of the drought prone areas which are present at the higher level will
escape the service of irrigation by this surplus water and only those lands which are at the
lower level like those lands between the height of 100 to 300 meters above the mean sea
level and they are already flood prone will get the benefits.
It is said in the project plans that it is going to interlink the Himalayan perennial rivers
with the peninsular seasonal rivers. But when we go through the course of all the
proposed canals Manas Sankos Tista Ganga or Jogighopa Tista Farrakka with Farrakka
Sunder bans or Ganga Damodhar Subarnarekha – Mahanadi - Godavari is the only canal
which makes the Himalayan water to flow little down till Godavari. But the limitation is,
the entire course of this route is very close to the coastal area and the land available
between the course of the canal and the coast is very narrow, thus there is surplus water
available in the canal but very little land available for irrigation related activities. Godavari
to Krishna link canal is not going to get this water as the origin of Godavari to Krishna link
is higher than the ending point of Mahanadi Godavari link. Water may not stay in the
canals close to the coastal areas in the absence of good civil engineering works and due to
the formation of repeated subsurface channels between the canal and the sea.
NWDA is planning to construct the storage reservoirs on the main Ganga and the
Brahmaputra and on theirprincipal tributaries in India and Nepal along with inter-linking

4. canal system to transfer surplus flows of the eastern tributaries of the Ganga to the West
apart from linking of the main Brahmaputra with the Ganga. This may provide irrigation to
an additional area of about 22 million hectares, but these things will not give any
solutions for the drought prone areas which are already mentioned in the earlier
paragraphs which are about 100 million hectares. It is also necessary to think about the
ILR projects which are going to generate more than 30 million kilowatt of hydro-power
and thus we can become independent from importing crude oil in large scale. The NWDA
method is in such a way that, the excess water above the full capacity of these reservoirs
is not going to irrigate the majority of the drought prone areas of India, which is about
hundred million hectares, and If all these reservoirs are full then that excess water will
flow again to the same flood prone areas. Please note that many of these proposed canals
are present at the places where these areas are already flood prone. It is difficult to
control the flood through the canals created at the lower level because by that time the
volume of water becomes more and the damage to the canal is also more. So, this
method will not be able to provide substantial flood control in the Ganga-Brahmaputra
basin. The same statement holds good for the southern states of Nepal which are at lower
level and for Bangladesh.
Interlinking of Mahanadi with Godavari is not going to give any benefit to any lands
except for a very limited area of land between the canal and the coast as it almost joining
River Godavari just before it joins Bay of Bengal.
Godavari (Polavarum)- Krishana (Vijayavada) interlink canal may not get sufficient water
as the Mahanadi (Manibatra) – Godavari (Dowleswarum) link is lower and that watergoes
to the sea directly and there are another two parallel Godavari Krishna link (Inchampalli –
Nagarjunasager and Inchampalli – Pulichintala) above this link which may drain most of
the water of river Godavari except for the water generated in the tributaries of Godavari
like Pen Ganga and Weinganga. So this small area will be over crowded with parallel
canals connecting the same rivers, like spending more to earn less.
Yamuna to Rajasthan and Rajasthan to Sabarmati interlinking at that lower level will not
be doing much help to both Rajasthan and Gujarath, because even if all the water of river
Yamuna is fed to this path, then also the water will not reach River Sabarmati due to high

5. evaporation and percolation, may require huge investment and civil engineering works to
overcome this problem like converting this channel as a closed system.
Some of the interlinking channels even though they are short may not get good ground
surface for the creation of plain open canal as it has to pass through multiple hills and
vallies like Bedthi Vardha, Netravathi Hemavathi, Pamaba Achankovil Vaippar interlinks.
Multiple interlinks between the same adjacent rivers which are very close will make the
lower links to suffer from scarcity of water as the upper links drains the major share of
water to the lower rivers and the example are Krishna Pennar links (Arising from Almatti,
Srisailam, Nagarjunsagar and reaching Pennar), Godavari to Krishna links (Inchampalli –
Nagarjunsagar, Inchampalli – Pulichintala, Polavarum – Vijayawada).
This system will not work like the synergistic system to the majority of the irrigation
system which are already existing today in the areas mentioned earlier, and thus the dams
canals of these areas will remain dry in the absence of rain in their catchment area even if
the proposed canals flowing full continuously.
This system will not give solutions for all the irrigation related disputes present today
because this system receives more water and irrigates less land, leaves more land of India
drought prone.
There is no scope for extension of the canals to irrigate more land if the canals get more
water as most of the canals end very close to the sea or almost in to the sea, like
Rajasthan Sabarmati link, Mahanadi Godavari link, Pennar Palar Cauvery link.
My request to all the leaders, thinkers and engineers of India to go through this thought
even if it wrong, because you are holding the future of 135 crore peoples future and the
future of the nation.
Thanking you.
Dr Shivu P.
Date: 25.10.18.