River linking plans
The NDA-II government at the Centre is on course to begin a dream NDA-I project — linking up major rivers of the country to solve its chronic water woes. The grand (or grandiose) ‘Interlinking of Rivers (ILR)’ plan envisages 30 river links by damming up ‘water surplus’ rivers and diverting the water along cals to ‘water deficit’ rivers. If completed in 2-3 decades, this biggest water network in the world could end up creating 30 mega cals of 15,000 km total length and around 3,000 dams. Apart from bringing water to drought-prone regions and thereby raising the country’s irrigation potential to 175 million hectares by 2050, this plan also has a massive hydropower component. The tiol Water Development Agency (NWDA), which has designed the projects for 14 Himalayan and 16 peninsular rivers, claims the ILR could add 34 gigawatts to the country’s hydropower generation. The Union Water Resources Ministry’s latest report says that feasibility reports (FRs) of 14 links for peninsular rivers and 2 links for Himalayan rivers have been prepared after survey and investigation. Among these is the FR that proposes linking the Mas and Sankosh rivers of Assam, Tista of west Bengal and Ganga flowing through Bihar (M-S-T-G link). Another proposed link under Himalayan component that concerns Assam — the Jogighopa-Tista-Farakka link — has however been shelved. This may have something to do with Dhaka’s opposition; after all, 54 rivers from India flow through Bangladesh and it is bound to be wary over any move to tamper with their flows.