Too many links ignored

THE Modi government will have us believe that it is finally about to deliver the grand river interlinking project across the country, beginning with the Ken-Betwa connection later this year. It definitely does have the will, as with all other economically beneficial ideas. That is about all; most of the other hurdles have not been removed, or even cannot be removed. The idea of transferring surplus water from one river to another in a deficit area would be tempting to any planner. Yet the UPA government for long moved slowly on this. There were reasons, which remain unchanged — cost-benefit balance, environment, human displacement and, the biggest of all, political disagreement.

The Ken-Betwa link in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh is being projected as a model for the larger plan involving 30 such links across the country. It moved because both states stood to gain in irrigation, and the agreement for it was signed way back in 2005. That is not the case with most of the other links, where one state has to lose water for the other to gain. Minister of State for Water Resources Sanwar Lal Jat has called for a “spirit of goodwill and cooperation”. If only such a thing existed in our deeply divided politics. The Ken-Betwa link is also the worst example environmentally. It is going to drown a significant chunk of the Panna National Park that has been acclaimed for the first successful tiger reintroduction project. Under the UPA government, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had held back approval for the project just because of this consideration.

The idea of transferring water has certain assumptions. That the deficit areas have no other alternatives, the surplus is because there is no use for that water in a particular area, and the only costs are financial. None of these is an absolute truth. While all these aspects are debated by the various stakeholders, environment is one that has only a handful of activists to speak for it, especially given the emphasis of the NDA government on economy. Moreover, many dreams, good or bad, remain just that because of their sheer size.