Inter Basin Water Transfer Link Project of India

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Critics shred to pieces ambitious Indian river scheme
By Surendra Phuyal
Kathmandu Post
March 20, 2003 

KYOTO, Japan, March 19 : Leading water rights activists from the United States and India today criticized India’s recently announced plan to interlink rivers, and suggested that it make proper environmental and social impact assessment before going ahead with the ‘highly ambitious’ project.

More importantly, the activists demanded that the government of India hold fair negotiations with its neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal, from where such transnational rivers of South Asia like the Ganga and the Brahmaputra flow.

"It’s absurd. It’s a huge scam being pushed by the big-dam and infrastructure lobby in India," Patric McCully, the campaign director of Berkeley (USA)-based International Rivers Network told The Kathmandu Post. "That is not the solution to India’s looming water crisis."

In December last year, India floated the ambitious plan to interlink 37 rivers flowing down the sub-continent. The project, estimated to cost a whopping Indian Rs 5,600 billion, envisages constructing a series of huge dams and long canals linking the rivers throughout the Indian landmass. If the plan goes ahead, construction will start in 2004 and be completed in 2014.

Like many activists and experts attending the Third World Water Forum here, McCully said that India should hold fair negotiations with its neighbours before working to change the course of the transnational rivers. "And fair dispute settlement mechanisms need to be in place-so as to settle disputes that are likely to arise between India and Bangladesh, and India and Nepal," he added.

Renowned Indian water and human rights activist Rajendra Singh, president of the Tarun Bharat Sangh, said that the majority of the people in India were against the idea of interlinking rivers. "But if the government decides to go ahead, then it has to hold necessary consultations with the neighbours," he added.

The Magsaysay award-winning activist has been instrumental in ensuring low-cost and cheap water to 700,000 people of 1,058 villages in the Indian state of Rajasthan. His tool: aggressive social mobilization to build rainwater harvesting facilities and watershed and catchment areas there.

"The solution lies in communitization of our water resources, not privatization or corporatization," Singh said, expressing fears that dams and infrastructure lobbies could take over and dampen the hopes of millions of the poor in South Asia.

For its part, the government of Nepal has not yet sent an official response to India vis-à-vis the plan of interlinking rivers. Officials at the Ministry of Water Resources, who are attending the forum, here say that there have been no official dialogue on the issue so far.

Over 50 representatives from Nepal, most of them NGO representatives, are participating in the mega-international meet here. In all, there are nearly 10,000 delegates from around the world. They include princes from the Netherlands, Morocco and Japan, and ministers, government officials, activists and farmers from around the globe.

Indian journalists and NGO activists here describe the idea of interlinking rivers as a "ridiculous, stupid and hare-brained scheme".

"This is a crazy scheme," said Keya Acharya, a senior journalist from Bangalore, who is associated with the Deccan Herald and Inter Press Service. "The interlinking is being touted as a key to flood control benefits, but the change will be minuscule compared to damages and destruction. The government should learn from its experiences in Bihar."

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