This file contains a presentation on " interlinking of rivers in India ". Describing the efforts made in past, present scenario, possibilities, problems their solution and alternatives.

1. PRESENTATION
ON
“INTERLINKING OF RIVERS IN INDIA”

2. INTRODUCTION
India accounts for 2.4% of the world’s surface area but supports 16.7% of
the world’s population. India possesses meager 4% of world’s water
resources, that too highly uncertain in time and space due to its
monsoonic climate. Still, India possesses dismal per capita storage
capacity compared to those countries where rainfall is more or less evenly
distributed in time and space. While per capita storage capacity in North
America, Russia, Australia, China are respectively 6150, 6013,4729 and
2486 cubic meter, the same in India is only 262 cubic meter. Hence to
build robustness to climate variability and to overcome water scarcity in
India, India must very fast harness accelerated water storage capacity at
all feasible sites.

3. Per capita storage in cum
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
Per capita storage
in cum

4. HISTORY
During the British raj, an Engineer Sir Arthur Cotton had sought to link
the Ganga and the Cauvery to improve connectivity for navigation
purposes.
But due to the increased railway connectivity among the areas, the
idea was shelved.
In 1982, the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) was formed
as an autonomous body entrusted with the task to carry out the water
balance and feasibility studies of the river linking program.
In Feb 2012, Supreme Court, gave its go-ahead to the interlinking of
rivers and asked the government to ensure that the project is
implemented expeditiously.

5. OBJECTIVES
Equitable distribution of the available water resources within a nation
or a region;
Increased Economic Efficiency;
Self sufficiency in Basic water related outputs such as food and hydroenergy;
Providing livelihood and employment opportunities in situ, in various
parts of the nation so that migration of population, seasonal or
permanent, short distance or long distance, in water distress situations, a
distress large scale migration of population is avoided through a balanced
regional economic development.

6. THE INDIAN ‘INTERLINKING OF RIVERS (ILR)’ PROJECT
The Project that the Supreme Court and the President have enjoined the
government of India to implement may well be the largest infrastructure
project ever undertaken in the world, to transfer water from the surplus
river basins to ease the water shortages in western and southern India
while mitigating the impacts of recurrent floods in the Eastern India. It
will build 30 links and some 3000 storages to connect 37 Himalayan and
Peninsular rivers to form a gigantic South Asian water grid. The
canals, planned to be 50 to 100 meters wide and more than 6 meters
deep, would facilitate navigation.

7. The interlinking of rivers in India is divided in following two distinct
components:
1. Himalayan component
2. Peninsular component
FIGURE- HIMALAYAN AND PENINSULAR COMPONENT OF THE ILR PROJECT

8. ILR PRICE TAG
Financial cost:Rs 5.6 L Crore
- 250% of India’s tax revenue in 2002
- 1/4th of India’s annual GDP
- Twice the entire irrigation budget of India since 1950
Rehabilitation cost:- Estimated that 8,000 sq. km. of land affecting the thousands
of villages and towns
- 33 mn of people have been displaced in India during the last
50 years most have not been rehabilitated and ILR will also
displace million of people from the most needy section.

9. Environmental cost:
- 50,000 ha of forest to be submerged only by peninsular link.
- Intensive irrigation in unsuitable soils will lead to water
logging and salinity.
- Highly polluted rivers will spread toxicity to other rivers.
- River system will be altered catastrophically creating
droughts and desert.

10. BENEFITS
Cheap irrigation of 35 million hectare land;
Availability of drinking water;
More inland navigation;
Generation of employment;
Enabling full use of existing irrigation projects;
Generating power to the tune of 35,000 MW with added
benefits, including flood control;
The transfer of 178 Km3 (34 Km3 through Himalayan and 144 km3
through Peninsular component) water per year through a combined
network of 12,500 km long canals;

11. PROBLEMS
Unfortunately, the centre has made little use of the powers vested in it
vide Entry 56 of List I.
States have exclusive jurisdiction over waters that are located within
their territories, including inter-state rivers and river valleys.
It is arguably this status of water in the constitution that constrains the
highest in the executive and the judiciary, despite their pronouncements
on and commitment to resolving the problem.
It has also stopped the Centre from establishing allocation rules and
clearly defined water rights among states that have unending disputes
over the sharing of inter-state water resources.
The latest example is the second Krishna Water Disputes
Tribunal, which has turned into a warzone, with a battery of
lawyers, technical staff and irrigation department officials from
Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh fighting to win the
maximum allocation of the Krishna river for their respective state.

12. SOLUTIONS
We need to see if a change in its constitutional status is required.
We also need to enhance our water-storage capacity, as we suffer
the most from the vagaries of the monsoon.
River-linking project, alongside a chain of water-conservation
projects, would offer a solution.

13. ALTERNATIVES TO ILR
Rainwater harvesting and conservation of water resources.
Recharging ground water reservoir.
Large scale utilization of ground water in deltas.
Community participation: Approaches of reducing water consumption
by the affluent in the cities and reducing the wastage of water by the
farmers in their field can be attempted.

14. REFERENCES
NWDA (2006)
www.indianexpress.com/news/status-of-water/982120
www.downtoearth.org.in/content/supreme-court-go-ahead-interlinkingrivers

15. Thank You